


Gerber Daisies

by DiscordantWords



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Season 8, Serial Killers, casefile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 02:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3674175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder, adjusting to life after death, comes face-to-face with one of the most dangerous criminals he's ever encountered. Set against the backdrop of Season 8.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Dug up, cleaned up, resurrected. Much like our favorite G-man. 
> 
> This is a heavily edited and reworked version of Gerber Daisies, which was initially begun back in 2006 and posted around 2008.

On the sidewalk Sunday morning  
Lies a body just oozing life  
Someone's sneaking 'round the corner  
Could that someone be Mack the Knife

\- Bobby Darin, _Mack the Knife_

 

*

Maxwell Gerber regarded himself in the bathroom mirror. His fingers drummed on the marble countertop, wedding band clicking rhythmically. 

He liked what he saw. 

He thought himself every bit as handsome as he'd been in his college days. He was tall, broad-shouldered, tightly muscled but in a good way, in a way that suggested long runs on the beach and a healthy lifestyle, not gym slavery. His hair was thick, dark, and showed no sign of thinning. 

He had changed into a pair of black silk pajamas, a Christmas gift from his wife last year, and he thought he looked roguish in them. A little dangerous, even. The silk raised goosebumps when it slid across his skin. 

He leaned forward, brought his face right up against the mirrorglass, locked eyes with his reflection. He smiled, all straight white teeth. A lock of hair fell fetchingly across his forehead. His breath steamed against the glass. 

There was a single spot of crimson on his cheek, and he touched it with the tip of his finger, stroked his skin gently, still smiling. It left a rust colored smear in its wake. He shut his eyes and breathed in. 

When he opened his eyes, he let the smile fade away. Reluctantly, he turned on the tap and splashed his skin with cool water, buried his face in a fluffy towel. 

He made his way down the hall, footsteps muffled by plush carpet. He paused outside his daughter's room, peered inside. She lay sprawled on her bed, comforter kicked away. Her small hands were flung over her head, face placid and trusting. He drew the blankets up to her chin, bent to place a kiss on her tiny forehead, breathed in her sweet smell. 

She rolled onto her side and mumbled in her sleep. 

He went back down the hallway, moving comfortably through the darkness. His bedroom was at the end of the hall, his wife slumbering in their four-poster bed. 

He stood over her for a moment, looking down at the blond hair fanned out around the stunning face, the soft skin and softer sheets, satin and silk. 

She stirred and opened her eyes, blinked up at him with drowsy, half-aware alarm. "Max?"

"Shh," he said, and patted her head, large fingers splaying out to cup her skull through cornsilk hair. 

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. "What time is it?"

"Almost two," he said, slipping into bed beside her. "Go back to sleep." 

She slid up against him, lay her head on his chest. He was keenly aware of her breathing, the gentle patter of her heartbeat. 

"Where have you been?" she murmured. 

"Downstairs," he said, and smiled up at the ceiling. "Working." 

"Max," she said again, and he heard the frown. "You start vacation tomorrow. You promised us." 

"Yes," he said. "Tomorrow. Not tonight. Now go to sleep." 

He lay awake, listening as her breathing slowed. 

*

He woke early, he always did. Even as a young man he had been entranced with the promise inherent in each sunrise, could not bear to squander the daylight. 

He jogged into town through the morning mist, breathed in the spring air. The florist was open, empty of customers so early in the day.

"A gift for my wife," he told the girl behind the counter, favoring her with his most devastating smile. She flushed as she rang up his purchase. 

He stopped next at the deli, picked up bagels and light cream cheese, four copies of the newspaper. 

He walked home at a leisurely pace, watched the neighborhood awaken around him. Wrought iron gates creaked open, signs of life began to stir behind privet hedges. He crossed the street to avoid a landscaping crew with a rogue leaf blower, favored them with a wave and a good-natured smile. 

Gabrielle's BMW was gone and the house was quiet when he let himself in. She usually took Devon to kindergarten and then spent the next hour at the fitness club.

He had some time. 

He sat down at the kitchen island, slipped on a pair of soft leather gloves. He unwrapped the bundle he'd purchased at the florist, spread the brightly colored flowers across the granite countertop. He thumbed through the first newspaper, found the article he was looking for. 

He used a pair of kitchen shears, neatly trimmed the edges away from the text. He did the same for the next three newspapers. Then he moved on, used a thick black magic marker to address four small cardboard boxes. 

He printed neatly, block letters, adding a little flourish to his Os, a style he had copied out of a book. If things went awry, he'd have handwriting experts chasing their own tails in circles for days. The idea pleased him. 

He folded the article in half, slid it into the first box along with a single long-stemmed flower. He repeated the ritual with the remaining three boxes, touching each address reverently. 

"I have high hopes for you, my friends," he murmured. He was surprised but not displeased at the tug of nostalgia he felt, looking at their names. There had been good times, good memories. He had enjoyed their company. 

He stacked the boxes in a shopping bag, placed it by the door. 

He had coffee brewing and the bagels and cream cheese set out on the counter when Gabrielle returned home. 

"For you," he said, presenting her with a flower. 

She smiled, shook her head in that slightly self-conscious way he adored. He brushed her hair away from her face, tucked the flower behind her ear. 

"Radiant," he said. 

"You're too much," she laughed. "Thank you for breakfast." 

"What do you say we head into the city today? Catch a matinee show? We'll be home before Devon is out of school." 

She looked up from her bagel in surprise. "Really?"

"I promised you vacation. I am entirely yours for the next week, my love. Do with me as you wish." 

"I'd like that," she said. 

"I'll call Craig and have him meet us at the airfield. Twenty minutes enough time?" 

*

She did not comment on the bag until they had settled into the butter soft seats of his private jet. Her eyes fell on it as the plane began its slow taxi on the runway. 

"What's that?" she asked, toeing the bag with one leather sandal. 

"Just a little business," he said.

"Max," she sighed. 

"Just something I need to drop off," he said. "Then I'm yours. Entirely. I promise." 

The rising whine from the jet engines drowned out her reply.


	2. Chapter 2

*

Dr. Smith was a bland looking man in his early sixties. His pale hair danced above a crinkled, troubled face. He looked, Mulder thought, like someone had stuck his finger in a wall socket. 

The mad-scientist look suited him, Mulder decided. He preferred that his physician looked like a comic-book villain; it made it less likely that he actually was. Unremarkable faces hid the most heinous of deeds.

He'd selected the doctor based on the name Smith. Anything that seemed so blatantly fake _had_ to be genuine. 

Smith knit his bushy eyebrows together across a latticework of lines on his forehead, studied the x-ray in his hands. 

"I don't quite understand what you want me to look for." 

"Anything anomalous," Mulder said. He sat stiffly on the exam table, tried not to look as awkward as he felt in the thin paper gown. 

"There's nothing," Smith said, shaking his head. An errant tuft of hair waved like insect antennae. "You're the picture of health." 

"There's no--"

"Mr. Mulder." Smith took off his glasses, set them on the counter. His voice was heavy with the kind of patience usually reserved for small children. "Is there something in particular you want me to find?" 

Mulder did not reply for a long moment, sat there listening to the bustle of the office through the door. 

"Nothing," he said finally, standing and reaching for his clothes. 

*

He drove back to his apartment in silence, the radio off, windows rolled up against the spring warmth. Scully's car was parked in front of his building and he hit the gas, continued down the street. 

She'd be waiting inside, waiting for him, and when she saw him she'd have that awful expectant look on her face, and lately he had no idea at all what, exactly, she was expecting him to do. 

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel when he found himself at a red light, turning his attention to the happy family in a minivan next to him. There was a woman in the front seat, her head thrown back against the headrest, her hand on the driver's shoulder. She was laughing. Behind them, a little boy pressed his face against the window and blew raspberries on the glass. 

Mulder looked away, pressed on the gas again, turned into a small park at the edge of his neighborhood. 

He sat on a bench for two hours, watching old men play chess. When he returned to his apartment, Scully was gone. 

*

Later he lay in his bed and watched the shadows play across the ceiling while he tried not to close his eyes. Closing his eyes brought him to all kinds of unpleasant places, places where men with identical unsmiling faces stood over him while he bled and screamed. 

He could just make out the steady gurgle of his fish tank, the sound familiar and distant through his thin walls. She'd fed his fish. 

She'd buried him, replaced him, left him behind, and she'd fed his fish. 

He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. The thought of her, visiting his apartment every day, keeping things running smoothly while she calmly awaited his eventual return from the grave might have amused him had it not seemed so surreal. She'd presumed him dead before-- had even refused to believe her own evidence-- but she'd never had proof, never a corporeal form that she could poke and prod and test and grieve over.

_Had_ she grieved?

The Scully he'd left behind would have, he thought. She would have mourned him, then filed it away in one of her secret compartments, the ones she reserved for hurts too deep to talk about. She would have made noise about justice, about vengeance, but that fire would have sputtered and died eventually. There was no such thing as justice for the men involved in what had happened to him, and she would have realized that. 

She would have gotten the hell out of the FBI, away from the X Files, set up shop in some small town where she'd distinguish herself quickly amongst the medical staff. A woman of Scully's prodigious talents wouldn't remain unnoticed for long. She'd find herself a nice doctor, someone who didn't bring decades of emotional baggage to the table, and she'd--

He stopped himself there, not wishing to delve deeper. He had wanted her happy. Wanted her to have a future. But it was a future he did not want to see, a future he was not meant to see. He would be conveniently buried, blind to the world, content in death with the knowledge that his last thoughts were of her happiness and not his own. 

In a way, he'd have been less thrown if he'd awakened to find her gone. 

The thought of her haunting his apartment, keeping things neat and feeding his fish as though he were merely away for a brief sojourn, unnerved him. How long? How long would they have let her linger like that? Her mother, Skinner, the Gunmen-- how long would they have let her go on feeding his fish and pretending while her stomach swelled from the press of new life--

He groaned and sat up, kicking the blankets away a bit more violently than he'd intended. He'd been a poor sleeper even before he had vivid memories of torture to reflect upon. He supposed it was a lost cause at this point. In the kitchen he found a refrigerator stocked with low sodium V-8. 

"It's good for you," she'd said, conceding that he was unlikely to suddenly change his eating habits for the better. "It'll help you get your strength up." 

He cracked open one of the small cans, chugged down the thick liquid and tried not to think about how it had always reminded him of blood. 

She'd meant well, after all. The least he could do was drink the stuff.

He thought briefly of calling her. The clock said it was three-eighteen in the morning, and in another lifetime he might have dialed her number just to discuss his suspicions about the correlation between V-8 drinkers and vampires, might have chuckled at the sound of her sleep addled voice. She would have pretended to be annoyed at the intrusion, but she would have stayed on the phone. 

_"We've already seen a correlation between vampires and pizza sauce," he'd say. "Is tomato juice really that much of a stretch?"_

He tried to imagine her answering the phone tonight. There would be none of her tired amusement, just badly concealed concern. She'd want to know what was wrong. Next thing he knew she'd be dragging her aching, pregnant body out into the night to check on him, and that wasn't what he wanted at all. 

He sighed, tossed the empty juice can towards the garbage, heard it clink off the side and roll somewhere across the floor. His aim was off. Perhaps it had been all those months in zero gravity. 

There would be no phone calls to Scully tonight. 

He moved into his darkened living room instead, meaning to turn on the television but pausing at a muffled thump from the hallway outside, a tentative knock that was barely audible over the gentle gurgle of the tank. 

Scully, he thought, not knowing whether to be relieved or apprehensive. He opened the door without looking through the peephole. 

It was a Scully at his door, but the wrong one. 

Maggie stood in his hallway, face pale in the dim yellow light. There were sooty circles under her eyes, her normally pristine hair slightly mussed. 

Dread pooled in his stomach and he opened his mouth to speak. "Is--" 

"No," she said, looking slightly awkward, as if uncertain of what he might do. She shifted from one foot to the other. "I didn't want to wake you, but--" 

"You didn't," he said, at a loss for words.

She nodded, and he saw her eyes flit to the scars on his cheeks. She looked away, fidgeted with the shoulder strap to her purse, and he stepped uncomfortably aside, clearing a path into the apartment. 

"I was just going to leave," she said. "I shouldn't have--" 

He waved her off. "Can I get you something? V-8?" He kept his voice light, in spite of the fact that Scully's mother was standing in his dim living room in the middle of the night, looking as though she was about to blurt out something profoundly unpleasant. 

"Fox, it's three-thirty in the morning," she said, in a voice that made his offer sound utterly preposterous. 

*

"I couldn't--" Maggie Scully sat stiffly on the couch, an empty can of V-8 on the coffee table next to her. "I couldn't bother Dana with this. She has too much to worry about as it is, and she'd--" she gave a tired half laugh. "She'd just think I was being silly." 

He was reminded eerily of the first time he'd ever met Scully's mother, standing in the hallway of Dana's ruined apartment, her pale worried face bathed in flashing blue and red lights. 

"I haven't been able to sleep," she said. "I thought I'd go for a drive, and I wound up here, and I was going to wait until morning, but then someone was leaving your building and the door was open, and I thought maybe I'd just wait in the hall--" her voice was rapid and breathless, the voice of someone accustomed to filling nervous silence. 

Mulder held up his hand. "What is it?" 

"My son," she said, exhaling. "Charlie. I don't know if you've ever met him." 

He shook his head.

"There's been some trouble, over the years," she said. "Always has been, in one form or another. He's going through a divorce. I've been worried." 

She fell silent, looked down at the ground. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, waited for her to continue. 

"This is different," she said with a quick little shake of her head. "I had a dream. A dream that something terrible is going to happen. I can't explain it, Fox, but it's the same feeling I had with Dana, when--"

He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, put an awkward hand on her shoulder. "Have you called him?"

"At this time of night?" she raised her eyebrows, and he laughed. 

They locked eyes, and he tried to remember the last time he'd seen her look at ease. If he'd _ever_ seen her look at ease.

She smiled faintly, reached into her pocketbook, smoothed out a slip of paper. 

"He hasn't left a forwarding address. This is Michelle, his wife--" her voice faltered. "This is her number and address. In case. In case you wanted to try--" 

He nodded slowly and took the paper from her outstretched hand, noting the neat handwriting that was so much like Scully's. 

"I'm sorry for coming at such an hour," she said, standing up quickly. She looked flustered, her face closed off from the startling honesty she had just displayed. "I know things have been strained in the past." 

They still are, he thought, but didn't speak. He suddenly felt more tired than he could remember ever feeling in his life. 

Maggie moved towards the door, then turned back. This time her gaze was direct, not flinching from the healing wounds on his face. "I didn't believe it, when Dana told me," she said. "I guess I just needed to see for myself." 

She stepped out into the hallway, sensible black flats whispering across honeycomb tile. She looked over her shoulder at him. "Take care of yourself, Fox. She needs you now." 

She vanished into the shadows before he had a chance to speak. He lingered in the doorway for a moment, listened to the elevator chime. 

*

"Hi," Mulder said, fixing a wide smile on the harried-looking woman who opened the door. He stood on a whitewashed porch, amidst a riot of colorful flowers that had erupted from their pots in the spring sunlight. 

She smiled back, hesitant, disarmed by his grin but not willing to step out from behind her screen door. "Can I help you?" 

"You must be Michelle," he said, slipping his hands casually into his jean pockets. "Charlie told me a lot about you!" 

"I don't--"

"It's been years since he and I got together. I was in the neighborhood, figured I'd stop by and see if he was in..." he let his voice trail off, still smiling. 

She frowned, ran a nervous hand through her hair as she opened the screen and stepped out into the sunlight. "You're an old friend of Charlie's?" 

"Old college buddy," Mulder went on grinning, leaning against the porch railing. "But, like I said, it's been years." 

"Charlie," she laughed self-consciously. "Charlie doesn't live here anymore. We've separated." 

"Sorry to hear that," he said, squinting against the sun. 

Behind her, a cacophony of children's voices rose up. 

"BOYS!" Michelle yelled, turning back towards the house. She glanced back towards Mulder with a sheepish smile. "They can be a handful." 

Something shattered inside the house. A dog began to bark. 

Her smile faltered. "I'm sure you must be very busy. I'll tell you where you can find Charlie, and you can be on your way." 

*

The marina was half-empty, the true beginning of boating season still more than a month off. Mulder had no trouble locating The Wanderer. 

The boat was a comfortable size, about twenty-eight feet, and it bobbed invitingly on the calm harbor water. The fiberglass hull had been polished to a high sheen. 

Mulder walked slowly past it, keeping himself deliberately casual, not paying the boat any particular attention. 

There was a man sitting on the deck, face turned up to the sun. 

"Hello," Mulder said with a polite nod of his head. 

The man blinked and looked up at him, flashing a quick grin. "Gorgeous day." 

Feeling triumphant, Mulder stopped walking and stepped up to the boat. "Unseasonably warm, isn't it?"

"Just the way I like it," the man said, standing up and stretching. His skin was the kind of tan one could only get from spending countless hours in the sun, his skin weathered and browned. Sunlight glinted off of red-gold hair that had grown just a little too long, strands standing up at jaunty angles. His eyes, unshielded by sunglasses, were a faded blue, and he regarded Mulder with poorly concealed curiosity. 

Definitely a Scully, Mulder decided, although a different breed from Bill. Charlie had none of his brother's broad-shouldered brawn, was instead of slighter build, wiry. 

"Do I know you?" Charlie asked.

"No," Mulder said. "I'm just passing through. I've been thinking about getting a boat."

"Wise man," Charlie nodded, bending down to rummage in a faded red cooler, kicking aside several empty cans with one sandal-clad foot. "Want a beer?"

Eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning, Mulder noted. He nodded, reached out a hand, accepted a sweating Budweiser.

"Name's Charlie." 

"Marty," Mulder said, cracking open the beer. 

Charlie took a deep pull on his own can, dragging the back of his hand across his lips. He set it down on the deck with a little smile of satisfaction. "So. Big boat? Small boat?"

"Small," Mulder said. "Just something for the weekends. You know."

Charlie nodded, the breeze ruffling his hair. He looked out at the water, the gentle waves lapping at the dock. "It'll surprise you," he said softly. "Soon enough you'll want all of your days to be weekends." 

Mulder leaned in conspiratorially, resting his elbows on the faded teak railing. The bobbing motion of the boat had started to make him nauseous, and he looked past Charlie's swaying head and fixed his gaze on the horizon. "What do you think of this place? Good spot to keep a boat?"

Charlie took another swig of his beer and stood up, patted the railing fondly. "Not bad, for the money. It gets a little crowded in peak season. Suddenly, everyone's a captain." 

"No problems, though? Security, safety, none of that stuff?" Mulder watched him carefully, looking for any reaction.

"Other than the occasional drunken brawl," Charlie winked. 

He drained the rest of his beer and nodded his head, stepped back from the railing. "Thanks. Maybe I'll see you around." 

"Good luck with the boat," Charlie called after him. Mulder could hear the thump of the cooler lid and the clink of cans behind him as he walked away.

*

By the time he made it back to his apartment, it had all begun to feel as surreal as a dream. Maggie Scully's strange, middle-of-the-night visit to beseech him to check in on a man he'd never met before-- and the fact that he'd actually acquiesced to her requests and had spent the morning tracking down Scully's brother, who, aside from an apparent flirtation with alcoholism seemed none the worse for wear.

There were no familiar cars parked outside his building, and he sighed with relief, feeling almost instantly guilty for the sentiment. He felt off kilter, as though his world had resumed spinning on a new axis.

He felt, at times, that he'd awakened in a world populated by pod people. Hell, perhaps he was the pod person.

He scratched at the skin on the back of his hand and wondered what Scully would say if he floated that theory by her.

She would have laughed. 

She would have laughed. Once. Called him nuts in that amusingly direct way she had, hands on her hips, eyebrows raised. She had never been afraid of offending him, not even from the beginning, when she was green as fresh cut grass and by all rights he should have been able to steamroll right over her and send her fleeing back up the stairs to Blevins to beg off of her assignment.

She would have laughed. And then maybe, just maybe, because their relationship had been a delicate, slow-blooming thing that had only just begun to flourish, maybe she would have pulled him in close and whispered in his ear about tricks she knew, tricks that would prove in no uncertain terms that he was a man and not an android or an alien. As a doctor she would know, she'd stress to him, looking into his eyes and speaking very slowly, a seductive lilt to her hushed voice that never failed to catch his attention. And he would have chuckled against the crown of her head, her soft hair tickling his nose as her hands skimmed down his back, cool deft fingers sending shivers down his spine. 

Once upon a time. She would have laughed.

He could picture her expression if he asked her about pod people now. She'd freeze up, would look positively stricken, as if he'd slapped her. Her eyes would widen, flooded with an emotion he had not yet been able to classify. He'd feel like an ass for putting that look on her face, and he'd certainly have no idea what to do to make her laugh again. 

Somehow, his life had been turned into a cosmic punch line, but no one found it funny anymore.

He resisted the urge to give his apartment door a good kick after he'd opened it, instead shutting it calmly behind him. Control. Control was good. 

He found nothing of interest on the television, finally left it muted and displaying a documentary on wolves. He stretched back on his couch, settled into the comfortable rut in the cushions from years of wear, let his thoughts wander.

Charlie Scully. Considerably more affable than his brother Bill seemed to be, although, admittedly, he'd never met Bill under ideal circumstances. Terminal illness and dead little girls weren't particularly conducive to friendship. Perhaps if, at the time, he'd introduced himself as Marty and given no indication that he knew Dana, Bill would have been equally magnanimous towards him. 

There were cobwebs in the corners of his apartment, thin strands that danced in the breeze and caught the fading sunlight. Scully had kept his apartment neat, neater than he'd ever kept it, but she hadn't climbed up on ladders to dust the corners. That was good. She was too pregnant to climb on ladders. 

He sighed, returned his thoughts to the task at hand.

Charlie obviously loved the water, unsurprising given his family background, although his appearance and demeanor did not suggest a military background. He had an attractive wife-- soon to be ex-- and more than one child. Boys. 

He remembered Scully mentioning babysitting a nephew once or twice. He'd taken that to mean she and her brother had a fairly close relationship. Maggie's comments the night before indicated that something had changed, likely recently. A side effect of the impending divorce? Related to the man's obvious affinity for drink? His own mother did not have a forwarding address for him. 

He wondered if Charlie could be suicidal, if that was what had Maggie so worried. It fit a pattern, he had to admit, cutting oneself off from friends and family, dissolution of a marriage, a close relationship with the bottle. But the man he'd met on the docks did not seem like someone teetering on the edge.

He sat up, rubbed his face, glanced at the clock. He could chase speculative theories in circles for hours and never get anywhere. Charlie was alive and well and looked to remain that way for the time being. He'd call Maggie, let her know that he'd found nothing amiss, and tell her where she could find her son if she had any further concerns. 

Her number was programmed in his cell phone. He'd always been the one to call her with bad news. No wonder they were so awkward around each other. 

"Hello?"

He blinked. "Scully?"

"Mulder?" she sounded as confused as he felt. "What--"

"I was calling your mom--"

"My mom had me over for lunch--" they'd spoken at the same time. 

Mulder let out an uncomfortable laugh, leaned against the wall with the phone tucked against his ear. He did not know what to do with his hands. "Anything good?"

"Just soup and sandwiches. Is everything--"

"Everything's fine," he said. 

There was a heavy pause on the other end. A _pregnant_ pause, he thought.

When she spoke again, her voice was less certain. "Did you need to talk to--" 

"Yeah," he said. 

"Right," she remained on the line for a moment more. He could hear her breathing. When she went away, he sighed.

"Fox?" Maggie now, voice thick with concern.

"Mrs. Scully," he let out a breath of air. "I just wanted to let you know that I swung by to see your son this morning."

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Is he all right?"

"He's living on his boat," he told her. "Doesn't seem to be in any trouble as far as I can see." 

"I appreciate you doing this," she said. He could hear the relief in her voice. 

"Sure," he said.

There was a pause. He wondered if he should say something else.

"There's another call coming in," Maggie said.

"Right," he said. "Uh, let me know if you need anything." 

He disconnected the call, looked down at the phone in his hand. He dialed another number. 

"Doctor Smith's office."

"Hi," he said. "My name's Fox Mulder. I was in for an appointment yesterday."

"Yes?" the voice on the other end of the line was chipper, cheery. "How can I help you?"

"Just checking on the results of my blood tests." 

"Oh," she said. "Yes. I... let me get your chart." 

He heard rustling paper, the hum of voices and ringing phones in the background.

"Yes," she said again. "I have your chart right here. Everything looks fine, Mr. Mulder." 

"Damn," he said, and hung up. 

*

Sunday morning found him awake early, and he drove out to the storage facility where he'd left his mother's things after she died. He did not question that it would all still be there, the monthly fee settled. After all, his apartment had remained just as he'd left it. 

He was correct in his assumptions, and he drew up the door to reveal the shrouded boxes and furniture he'd hidden away a lifetime ago. 

The pain was no longer sharp. He no longer felt the need to question why his mother had chosen to take her own life. If she'd known half of what he knew now, she'd taken the easy way out. He could no longer begrudge her that. 

His own return from death had left him feeling curiously unfettered to the mortal coil. He knew Scully was furious at him for risking his life the way he had, for testing his own mortality in exchange for stolen census data. He could find no words to explain to her that he was already dead. If he were to be shot, or stabbed, or otherwise disposed of, it really just came down to semantics.

The first cardboard box he opened contained a variety of dusty knick-knacks and he pushed it aside with only a moment's hesitation. He considered smashing the little ceramic figurines to see if his mother had hidden any more otherworldy weapons inside. Who knows, he thought, maybe she had some vials of alien vaccines stowed away somewhere. 

He had a chuckle at the idea of a Hummel massacre, of standing amidst the carnage of shattered limbs and chubby painted faces, and he moved on without slaking his curiosity. 

There were no photographs amidst the remnants of her life, she'd burned them all, and thus he had no unexpected images to send him spiraling into nostalgia. The things he found were just things, devoid of life, devoid of meaning. He dealt with them with quiet efficiency, making piles for the trash, piles for donation. 

He felt mechanical, separate from the items that had tied him to his past. They were very nice things. His mother had always taken great pride in appearances; a lovely house, two lovely children-- both of whom had been mutilated and tortured to death, odds he wouldn't want to take to Vegas-- and the tragedy that had struck early and struck hard had not altered her neatness. 

The anger that had followed him for months following his mother's suicide had dissipated, felt far away and unreal in the cool interior of the storage unit. His restless hands stilled on yet another dusty cardboard box, pulled it towards him. His fingers pulled up the tape to reveal a small collection of girlhood objects, toys and sentimental remembrances of a childhood that had only lasted eight years. He perused the contents of the box thoughtfully, wondering what could have compelled his mother to set fire to all of her pictures and yet keep Samantha's childhood playthings. 

He drew a tall porcelain doll from the box, smoothed the thick braided hair. He had a vague memory of his father bringing it home one evening, tucked under his arm as he carried his briefcase up the walk. The doll's face looked uncannily like Samantha, the lips pulled up in a mischievous grin. Only the eyes were wrong, a vivid painted green that had faded with time. She'd always liked the doll, had managed not to break it in her rough and tumble ways, kept it safe and protected.

He touched the doll's cool face with his finger, smiled a little at the memory. Then he set it aside with the other items earmarked for donation. He sorted carefully through the other toys, treating them with quiet reverence, and had almost emptied the box when his fingers, brushing the cardboard bottom, encountered something soft. 

He pulled a small rag doll from the box and studied it. If he thought hard enough, he could call up a memory of his mother, belly swollen in front of her, sitting at the kitchen table with her sewing needle, face furrowed in concentration. He'd sat and watched her, feet kicking restlessly at the rungs of his chair. She'd attached the trim to the doll's little dress and had looked up suddenly, caught his eye, and smiled. She'd been radiant, happy and hopeful and utterly ignorant of the tragedies to come. 

He turned the doll over in his hands and considered it. It had wilted a bit with age, but the face still wore the jaunty smile, the tangled yarn hair could be smoothed. It had once sat on the ledge overlooking Samantha's crib when she was a baby. 

He had, in his life, often wondered what his mother knew, what she'd suspected, about what had happened to his daughter. He had spent hours lost in idle fantasy, elaborate dreams where he found her, brought her home like the conquering hero. Dreams where he'd never lost her in the first place. Now, he wondered about his mother, about what secrets had resided in her increasingly guarded heart. Surely she'd had hopes and dreams for his and Samantha's futures, hopes and dreams that didn't include government conspiracies or extraterrestrials or violent deaths. Could she ever have guessed, while carrying him, that her son would live the kind of life he had? 

His thoughts carried him, an unwilling passenger, to Scully, and he found himself wondering what kind of hopes and dreams she carried for the child she carried. She had not spoken to him about it, had not spoken to him about anything of consequence, really. 

He was not angry with her, but it stung to look at her, full and radiant, and to know he'd had no part in it. They had tried to become parents before they'd been lovers, and it hadn't worked. When they'd finally crossed that last line, he'd thought they'd both been content in what they had in each other. She had seemed happy. 

She had seemed happy.

She looked to be at least eight months along, although he had not asked. So she had kept trying, had left him out even as they'd merged their lives together. The thought was a pulsating wound that left him queasy, anxious, made him want to find something loud and dangerous to do to keep from prodding at it. 

Just what had he interrupted with his untimely return from the dead?

He'd had a life, when he was alive. It had not been much, but it was more than he'd dared to hope for. He'd had a partner, a lover, a job he was good at. Somehow, amidst all of the horror, they'd finally managed to scrape together some happiness. 

Now, he had his apartment. And fish. Placeholders for what he really wanted. 

Scully's new partner-- just thinking the word made him want to spit-- brought out the worst in him. He might not be dirty, but he was rigid, more rigid than Scully had ever been. And what could they possibly have spent their time working on? He'd had to cajole her into nearly every case they'd investigated together, had to convince her of its validity, even when she was feeling particularly agreeable (and he thought she'd been feeling particularly agreeable for much of the year leading up to Bellefleur.) Doggett didn't have the kind of worldview shaped by seven years of smoke and mirrors. There was no one to do the convincing, no one to do the cajoling. No one to play the role of the lunatic. 

Had they just sat down there and laughed at each case file that came across the desk? 

He dealt a savage kick to an unfortunate box of china, reveled in the sound of breakage. Scully would tell him he was being territorial, which was ridiculous. Dead men held no territory. 

He'd loved her. He had. He'd loved her more than anything in the world. She had, over time, wound herself so tightly around his heart that he would have walked away from everything he'd ever cared about if she'd asked him to. There had been a time when his work had been all he cared about, and slowly, slowly, that had changed. He'd still _wanted_ answers, but he'd no longer felt like he _needed_ them. Not like he needed Scully. The thought of being displaced from her life haunted him. He still loved her, of course, but those missing months stretched between them, a chasm he couldn't even begin to fathom bridging. 

They'd spent seven long years growing towards each other, inexorably tangling their lives together. It was hard to imagine that in the months following his disappearance and death she may have begun to grow in a different direction. 

His cell phone chirped, startling him from his train of thought. He did not know whether to be angry or relieved at the interruption. 

"Mulder." 

"Fox," Maggie Scully said. 

He swiped a hand across his brow, stood up. "Something the matter?"

"My son just called." Her voice sounded pinched, strange. "I think he... would it be too much trouble for you to take a ride over here?" 

He hesitated a moment. "I'm on my way." 

He took the little rag doll with him.


	3. Chapter 3

*

Scully opened the door at her mother's townhouse, wearing an odd strained smile. She looked him up and down and he swiped at the dust on his shirt. 

"Thank you for coming," she said, her tone formal as she stepped aside to allow him in. 

"Sure, Scully," he said. "What's up?"

Maggie was standing in the living room, her hands clasped in front of her, face pale. Mulder cringed at the sight of her, prayed to whatever deity might be listening that something hadn't happened to Charlie moments after he'd pronounced him fine and dandy. 

"Mom," Scully said, leaving Mulder's side and moving towards her mother, one hand pressing protectively against her rounded belly. "Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

"That was Charlie on the phone before," Maggie said with a sad little smile. 

Mulder watched curiously as Scully sucked in her breath, bit her lower lip. "Oh," she said, and her voice sounded very small. 

"He didn't tell me much," Maggie said. "But you and I both know he wouldn't have called if he didn't... if it wasn't something important. He asked for your help. It may be an FBI issue, he said." She shook her head, looking both frustrated and impatient. 

Scully raised her eyebrows. "An FBI issue?" Her voice rang with familiar skepticism and it triggered a sharp pang of longing in his chest. 

"I'm worried about him," Maggie said, glancing over at Mulder. "You know I wouldn’t bring this to you if I didn't think--" 

"I'll go talk to him," Scully said.

"I don't think--" 

"Mom," she said, her voice sharp. "He says it's an FBI matter. I'm an FBI agent. It's as simple as that." 

Maggie looked distraught. "That's why I called Fox. He can... I just... I don't think you should be taking on any additional stress." 

Mulder coughed as he felt the attention in the room shift to him. He chanced a discrete glance at the nearest exit. 

Scully set her jaw, and he knew immediately that there would be no room for argument. 

"Let's go," she said.

*

"She called you," Scully said quietly as she eased herself into the passenger seat of his car. It wasn't a question. 

"She was worried," he said. He glanced over, watched her struggle with the seatbelt. She stretched the band across her swollen stomach, fumbled with the buckle. A smile quirked on his lips.

She glanced over at him, caught him smiling. She let a breath of air hiss out between her teeth, gave him a small smile in return. "You mind?"

He shook his head, reached over to tug the belt into place, guiding it across her shoulder so that it did not bite into her neck as he pulled. He allowed one finger to trace down the side of her face, heard her sharp intake of breath. When he looked at her, her eyes were closed. 

How easy it would be, he thought. To lean over and touch his lips to hers, in that casual-familiar way they had adopted in the months before Oregon. He'd had a hard time keeping his hands off of her, then, had found himself grinning at inappropriate moments, making excuses to be in her company. 

It had been a few months. Just a few months. How much could two people really change in such a short amount of time? 

"Mulder?" she whispered, and her eyes fluttered open.

There was naked emotion in those eyes, sharp, vivid, almost tangible. Pain, longing, fear, anger, want-- her face, which had been so guarded against him for years, suddenly showed him everything. 

Everything that had happened in those few months was written in the quiver of her lips, the dampness in her eyes, the hitch in her breath and the determined upward thrust of her chin. 

His hands shook. He put them on the steering wheel, turned away with a little cough, tried to look casual. He pretended he did not hear the sigh that escaped her lips. 

"There might be traffic," he said, his voice high and false to his own ears. 

"There's no rush," she said, turning to look out the window. Her hands folded across the swell of her belly. She did not make another sound.

*

The sun was high in the sky as Mulder and Scully made their way towards Charlie's boat. He reached out an absent hand to help her step up onto the pier, and her fingers were hot against his skin. She did not let her touch linger. 

Charlie was sitting on a folding chair on the deck of his boat, eyes closed, face tilted towards the warm sun. He had a radio by his feet, the volume low, Bobby Darin singing "Mack the Knife." 

"Hi again," Mulder said. 

Charlie blinked up at him from the deck. Empty cans rolled gently around his feet in time with the lapping waves. 

"Marty," Charlie said, snapping his fingers. He seemed pleased to have remembered the name. "Back so soon?" He stood up, wobbling a bit as he found his feet. His smile faded as his eyes fell upon his sister. 

"I was told there's been some trouble," she said, her face composed in the neutral mask she usually reserved for interrogations. "What do you need me to do?"

Charlie looked at her for a moment longer, turned back to Mulder. He scratched his head. "You're not Marty, are you?" 

"Fox Mulder," he said, sticking out his hand. "Sorry for the deception." 

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" 

Mulder let a wry smile touch his face. "So they say." 

"Well, shit," Charlie said with a shrug. He accepted Mulder's hand, shook it. His palms were chapped and calloused. 

"Charlie," Scully said.

"What happened to the other guy?" Charlie asked, glancing from Scully to Mulder and back again. "Mom said you were working with some other guy." 

Mulder bit back on a comment, masked it with a cough, turned to face the water. Gulls bobbed on the sea.

"Agent Doggett, yes," Scully said, her voice flat, professional, utterly without warmth. She sounded as though she were relaying facts to a stranger. "I didn't invite him along. I was under the impression you wanted this to be unofficial." 

"I don't know," Charlie said. "And I'm not in any trouble. Not really. Not yet." 

She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, a look that Mulder usually interpreted to mean that she'd reached the end of her rope. "If there's something you need to tell me, Charlie, just say it. Don't make me play these guessing games." 

He nodded, looked at the can in his hand, let it drop to the ground when he discovered it empty. "Right." Then he glanced at Mulder, his tense smile wavering. "No, seriously though. Wasn't there a funeral?"

"I hear it was a lovely service," Mulder said. "Although I can't say I was overjoyed with the amenities. Things were a little cramped." 

"Is he-- are you serious?"

"No," Mulder said, straight-faced. 

"Charlie," Scully said, and her voice was definitely sharper. End of rope reached. She turned slightly so that her back was to Mulder, a subtle but effective signal for him to shut up. 

"Well, hell," Charlie said. "If I'd have known, I wouldn’t have sent those flowers." 

"I'll refund your money," she snapped.

He reached out, patted her awkwardly on the head. "You never did have much patience." 

"What little patience I have is rapidly running out," she said. "Get to the point, or I'm going home." 

He heaved a dramatic sigh, shot Mulder one last dubious look, and settled back into his folding chair. He went to reach for the cooler, caught the expression on his sister's face and stopped. "Once upon a time--"

"Charlie," she said.

"Oh all right," the good humor had gone out of his face. "Michelle showed up about an hour ago with a package that arrived at the house yesterday. Addressed to me. Obviously, we haven't worked out a way to have my mail forwarded here."

He gestured vaguely towards a pile of unopened envelopes tucked under a tackle box. The edges of some of the envelopes had begun to curl from the humidity. Next to the pile was a small brown box, flaps open, torn packing tape fluttering in the breeze. 

"What was in the package?" Scully asked softly. She no longer seemed impatient or angry, just tired. Mulder could not help but wonder about the history between her and her brother. 

"This," he said, reaching behind him to produce a pink flower.

"A daisy," she said. 

"A gerbera daisy," he corrected. "Gerber daisy, so they say. They've gotten pretty popular over the years." 

"Do you think we could skip the horticulture lecture and explain why you felt the need to upset mom over a flower?"

"It came with this." He offered a crumpled newspaper article.

"East Hampton woman murdered," Scully read out loud.

"No suspects," Mulder added helpfully from over her shoulder. 

She shot him a look. It was brief, but it made him smile. 

"The package has no return address," Charlie said. "But it's from an old college friend." 

"So an old friend sent you a flower and a newspaper article." Scully looked supremely put out. "You haven't spoken to anyone in the family in months, and suddenly you expect me to drop everything because of a flower--"

Charlie's face had grown grave, serious. "You have no idea what this means." 

"What, Charlie? What does it mean?" She regarded him with a mixture of desperation and impatience. 

"It means he's started. And it's only a matter of time before the others start too." 

* 

Two ginger-haired young boys were wrestling on the lawn when Mulder pulled to the curb in front of the house. He watched for a moment, amused, as the boys tumbled across the grass and rolled into the flower beds, trampling several plants. 

Scully, apparently, found the display less amusing. She stood up from the car, cupped her hands to her mouth, and hollered. "PETE! SEAN!" 

Mulder glanced at her in surprise. She'd been so cautious, so gentle around him, that he'd almost forgotten how frightening she could be. 

The two boys stopped fighting and ran towards her, smiles on their faces. They stopped a few paces away, suddenly shy. 

"You're big," the older one said. 

"Not too big for a hug, I hope," Scully laughed. 

The boy smiled, a genuine, toothy grin, and lunged forward for a hug. 

So it had been a while, Mulder noted, since Scully had visited her nephews. He wondered when her relationship with Charlie had started to sour, realized he had no jumping off point to use. She never talked about her brother. 

"Hi Aunt Dana," the younger boy said, stepping up to receive his own hug. 

"Hi Pete," she said, pulling him in close. 

_"Babe,"_ Mulder said, snapping his fingers. 

Scully looked up sharply, her face coloring. 

Mulder coughed, looked away from her, turned his attention to the two boys, who were watching him with bewildered expressions. "I have it on good authority that one of you boys _really_ liked a certain movie about a talking pig." 

Sean reddened, and his younger brother erupted into giggles. 

"I was little," he protested. "I didn't know any better."

Pete continued giggling. "That's a BABY movie." 

"Did you know that your aunt," Mulder pointed to Scully, and the boys followed his gaze. "Once used the secret phrase from that movie to get an entire pen full of pigs to move?" 

He caught her eye, looked away quickly. She was rooted to the spot. 

Sean's eyes had gone wide, his freckled face open and innocent and entirely credulous. "She did?" 

"She did," Mulder said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "As a matter of fact, you really helped us out that day. We had gotten ourselves into something of a sticky situation." 

"Really?" 

"Really," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, the FBI is indebted to you. So don't let your brother get on your case about it." 

"Wow," Sean said, looking suitably impressed. His eyes shifted towards the car, and his jaw dropped as he realized his father was sitting in the back seat. "DAD!"

Charlie hesitated before sliding out of the car, his hands held up in mock surrender. "Hey, chief." 

"MOM!" Pete yelled, turning and running towards the house as his brother launched himself into Charlie's arms. "MOM! DAD'S HOME!"

"Only you, Mulder," Scully said, hiding her mouth behind her hand. "Only you could take what was possibly the most gruesome case we ever worked on and turn it into a story for an eight-year-old." 

"Were you concerned that I might have left something out?" 

They made their way up the drive, towards the concerned female figure that had taken up residence in the doorway. 

"Dana?" Michelle said, blinking in surprise. Pete clung to her leg. 

Mulder stood by while Scully accepted a stiff hug from her sister-in-law." 

"You," Michelle said, shifting her attention to him. "College friend of Charlie's, right?" 

"Dead man," Charlie corrected, stepping up to the porch, beaming. He bent down, offered a high five to Pete. "That's Fox Mulder." 

Michelle blinked, looked from Mulder to Scully and back again. "But... we sent flowers." 

"I know," Charlie said, rolling his eyes. "Cost an arm and a leg, too." 

"Michelle, I'm sorry to intrude on you like this," Scully cut in. "But Charlie seems to think that he's in a bit of trouble, and he's asked us to take a look at some of his old photo albums." 

"What kind of trouble?" she asked, frowning.

"Nothing to worry yourself about," Charlie said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

She bit her lip, studied him for a moment. "You look like you haven't been eating right. The boys miss you. They... they don't understand where their father went." 

"This is not the time," Charlie said, his smile stiffening. "I'll be in and out in less than an hour. Just pretend I'm not here." 

She shrugged, turned away with a look of resigned impatience. "Help yourself. Your stuff's in the attic." 

*

The "attic" was, in fact, simply an upstairs room, bright and airy like the rest of the house. Charlie's belongings were neatly packed in cardboard boxes, stacked against the walls. 

"Not a lot of storage space on the boat," he said, laughing a little bit. "She said she'd hold onto my stuff until I get myself a place." 

Scully let out a frustrated chuff of breath, sat down in a nearby chair. "Will you please explain to us why you felt it necessary to drive all the way over here to tell your story?" 

"I find I work better when I have visual aids." 

"I have an active imagination," Mulder muttered, feeling claustrophobic in the little room with its cheery yellow walls and clean windows. There were family photos on the wall, wedding photos, smiling faces, lonely reminders of a life that hadn't gone according to plan. He wondered if Michelle had left those pictures up on purpose, so Charlie would have to see them when he touched his boxes. He thought perhaps she had. 

He wondered if Scully had boxed any of his belongings, if his things had been neatly categorized and stacked to the side of the room so as not to present a tripping hazard. Maybe she'd spent the night before his discharge from the hospital frantically unpacking things, hiding the fact that she'd given up, said goodbye. 

He was jolted from his thoughts by a triumphant exclamation from Charlie, who lifted a dusty photo album from one of the boxes. He grinned, held it up. "Charlie Scully, the college years." 

Mulder glanced at Scully, saw the perspiration beginning to bead on her forehead. Some part of his brain began to fret-- was the room too warm? Had she been on her feet too long? Should she have climbed all of those stairs? Could the stress of this tenuous and unsettled family situation be too much for her? Had she ever, in the few strange days they'd spent together since his resurrection, wished he'd remained in the ground? 

He tore his eyes from her, returned his attention to Charlie. 

"Here," Charlie said, working a photograph loose of its backing. He thrust it under Dana's nose, and Mulder leaned in to peer over her shoulder. 

It was a group shot, four guys and a girl, arms casually slung around one another's shoulders. Mulder recognized Charlie immediately, his bright hair longer, his face young and worry-free. He had his sister's smile, the rare full-wattage one that she reserved for special occasions. 

"Mac, Joey, Tyler, yours truly of course, and Zoe," Charlie said, pointing to each face in turn. 

"Fascinating," Scully said, in a voice that suggested it was anything but.

"The package came from Mac." 

"And you know this because...?"

"His last name is Gerber." 

"Ah," Mulder said, unable to keep irritation from creeping into his voice. "A smoking gun." 

Scully shifted in her chair. "So this Mac Gerber, you think he killed the woman in the article?" 

"Of course he did." 

"Of course," Mulder echoed. "Obvious, isn't it?" 

"I didn't bring you here to mock me," Charlie snapped. "I'm trying to help you. I didn't have to do anything about this." 

"What would help," Scully said, speaking slowly and patiently. "Is if you would tell us what you know about this woman's death." 

Charlie went to the window, looked outside. The boys were sitting on the porch, subdued, quiet. "It was an intellectual argument," he said. "A purely hypothetical discussion. We did that a lot-- debated something just for the fun of it. We weren't usually serious about it, you know? You ever have one of those conversations where you don't actually mean anything you're saying, you're just arguing it for argument's sake?" 

"All the time," Mulder said. 

Charlie glanced at him, shrugged. "It was Joey's birthday. I remember it like it was yesterday. I guess sometimes that happens with your best years." He sat down on the floor, put his hand on the cover of the photo album like a talisman. "The five of us were at Joey's apartment, just getting drunk. Typical Saturday night." 

"Of course." 

"Mulder," Scully snapped. He shut up.

"That song. Mac kept playing that song. Joey was trying to learn it on his guitar." 

*

_1987_

_"Mack the Knife" was coming through the speakers, Bobby Darin's wry voice halfway drowned out by the off-key guitar in Joey's hands. It was Joey's twenty-first birthday and they'd spent it drinking beer in his living room, the stereo wailing. The record was Charlie's, he'd taken it from his parents the last time he'd gone home because he'd thought Mac would like it, and Mac did like it, he fucking_ loved _it. There was a B side, but he never played it, kept putting the needle back to the beginning._

_They let him, because it was Mac. Everything was a little bit cooler when Mac did it._

_They'd gotten Joey good and drunk, he could barely hold his perch on the couch, guitar clutched in numb and useless fingers. He plucked at the strings as they tried not to listen, he had difficulty holding a tune even while sober._

_Mac was sitting on the tattered love seat, arm slung around a pretty girl with teased blond hair. He had a beer in one hand, the sweating bottle pressed against her bare arm. A cigarette smoldered between his lips. He was dark and handsome and looked a little dangerous, and Charlie had found himself wanting a little of that to rub off on him, had taken to buying leather jackets and practicing his intense stare. He thought it might have been working, but no one,_ no one _could match Mac's practiced casual indifference._

_Tyler was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, a pile of empty cans next to him. He was built like an ox, seemed to have the constitution of one as well. Only the slight tremble in his hands gave away that he'd been drinking. He looked stupid, there was no getting around it, with his big face and close-cropped blonde hair, eyes that sat just a bit too close together. He did not often do much to dispel this illusion in public, taciturn at the best of times. But Charlie knew better. They all knew better. Tyler clutched a well-worn volume of poetry in one meaty hand, was reciting in a soft gentle voice to the miserable warbling of Joey's guitar._

_Zoe was the only girl they counted as part of their group. Mac circulated girls in and out of their lives with alarming frequency, interchangeable blondes with killer figures and irritating laughs, but none of them had ever become regular fixtures. Zoe was different, intelligent, bold, sarcastic. Charlie liked her. More importantly,_ Mac _liked her. She was heavyset, favored loose dark clothing, black hair cut in a blunt bob to frame a flawless face. She had a temper, sometimes struggled to keep it in check, had, more than once, sent one of Mac's dates fleeing into the night._

_But lately, Charlie had noticed, she'd been looking at Joey just a little too long, blinking at him with those big damp eyes of hers, standing a little too close, and he thought a time might come when she could no longer be considered a de facto guy. It was a damn shame, he thought. He liked Zoe. But once she crossed that line and began to demand to be looked at as a woman and not just one of them, they wouldn’t like her as much anymore. He thought it would only be a matter of time before she stopped throwing her empty cans into the corner and instead started nagging them to pick up after themselves._

_"Dom's having a party tonight," the blonde on the couch spoke up, shifting under the weight of Mac's arm around her shoulders._

_Mac took a puff on his cigarette, blew smoke in her face. "Fuck Dom."_

_The girl-- Ashley? Amanda? Annie?-- blinked at him for a moment before reaching for the cigarette in his hand. He let her take it, smiling, looking at her with his head tilted as though she was something out of the ordinary, something fascinating. Girls were helpless under the power of that stare, hell,_ everyone _was helpless under the power of that stare._

_"We're better than Dom," Mac said, taking the cigarette from her bright lips and looking at the red stain on the paper._

_"We're better than Dom," Joey echoed, several moments too late for his statement to have any real impact. He clenched one hand into a fist and almost dropped his guitar._

_Tyler stopped murmuring, closed his book. He blinked up at them with his small blue eyes._

_Zoe turned the dial on the radio down, winked at Charlie. They always knew when Mac was going to start in._

_"Guys like Dom," Charlie said, opening another beer, leaning forward so the blonde had his full attention. "They have no idea what it means to really live, you know? Bunch of morons. Barely even human." He saw Mac's lips curl into a smile, and it pleased him._

_"At least they have fun," she said, frowning as she scanned their faces. She blinked rapidly, looking a bit like a prey animal cornered in a lion's den._

_Zoe let out a sharp, derisive chuckle. Mac slid his arm off of his date's shoulders._

_"Fun?" Mac said, winking at Charlie, his signal that he was going to take over. "Packing into a room like cattle with a hundred drunken frat boys is fun for you?"_

_"You guys are drunk," she said._

_"It's different," Mac said._

_"We're expanding our minds," Joey called from where he sat._

_"You'd have to have one before you can think about expanding it," Zoe muttered._

_"Whatever," the blonde said._

_"No," Mac said, his voice suddenly hard. "Not whatever. It's not the same thing. Guys like Dom, all of those guys, guys like_ that _. They don't deserve to live."_

_Joey laughed, and this time the guitar did slide out of his hands. It hit the ground with a discordant twang and he fumbled for it, pulling it back into his lap, almost striking Zoe in the head. "We should kill 'em."_

_"Oh hell," the girl said, standing up. She wobbled on her heels. "I'm going to the party. All you guys do is mope around and drink."_

_"Go," Mac said, waving his hand dismissively at her. "All they're going to do at the party is try to get up your skirt."_

_She put her hands on her hips, narrowed her eyes at him from behind a tumble of feathered blonde bangs._

_"Don't think anyone's going to have much trouble with that, at this point," he said, looking her up at down._

_She raised one perfectly manicured middle finger and stalked from the room. The door slammed behind her._

_Tyler resumed reading from his little book._

_"Too bad," Charlie said, tipping a beer in Mac's direction. "She was hot."_

_"They're all hot," Mac shrugged. "Tomorrow there'll be someone else. I wish someone could make them see how predictable they all are."_

_Joey groaned. "I wish someone that predictable would look my way."_

_He earned a predictably longing look from Zoe that he, predictably, ignored._

_"It gets boring," Mac said, running a hand through his hair. He leaned back against the couch._

_"Oh, to have your kind of boredom," Charlie groused._

_Zoe turned up the radio._

_"WHEN THE SHARK BITES!" Joey bellowed abruptly, out of tune with what he was attempting to play on the guitar. "Scarlet billows start to spread!"_

_"God," Zoe said. "Someone take that guitar away before he hurts himself."_

_"You know," Mac said thoughtfully. "It is an interesting idea."_

_"What?" Charlie asked._

_"Killing Joey with his guitar?" Zoe offered._

_Mac shook his head, smiling. He leaned forward. Tyler closed his book and looked up, pale eyes bright with interest._

_"We," Mac said. "And by 'we' I mean the five of us present in this room. We're in agreement that we are intellectually superior to the vast majority of people, correct?"_

_"Of course," Charlie said._

_"Macky's back in town," Joey slurred._

_Mac turned towards Charlie, his eyes full of fire. He was no longer smiling. "How would you rank us? Intelligence-wise?"_

_"Joey's last," Zoe said in a sour voice._

_Joey gave her the finger from where he slumped on the couch._

_Charlie shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under that intense stare. "Well--"_

_"What if we could prove it?" Mac cut him off. He didn't seem drunk at all. He seemed energized, electrified, magnificent._

_"That we're intellectually superior?" Charlie asked. "How?"_

_"Obviously not through your grades, C-boy," Zoe said. Charlie gave her the finger. She laughed._

_"It takes skill to maintain such a consistent state of disinterest," Charlie said, and Zoe grinned, swatting at him._

_"I always figured we proved it by avoiding the idiots," Tyler said._

_"You ever think about murder?" Mac asked, his voice low._

_"All the time," Joey said, looking down at his guitar with an expression of dismay, as though realizing for the first time that the noises coming out of it could not, even in the kindest of definitions, be considered music. He tossed it aside._

_"Where are you going with this?" Zoe asked._

_"Murder," Mac said. "As an intellectual exercise." His cheeks had flushed with high color and he leaned forward, rested his hands on his knees. Mac rarely turned on his charm to its full extent for them. He usually reserved it for sultry co-eds. Charlie found himself drawn in, could see out of the corner of his eye that the others were as well. He hung on every word._

_"I've done a lot of reading on serial killers," Mac continued. "They're predictable."_

_"Are you proposing we become serial killers?" Charlie asked with a laugh._

_Mac cocked his head and offered a half-smile. "For argument's sake, suppose I said yes."_

_"You're nuts."_

_"Perhaps," Mac conceded. "But I'm not talking about taking up knives and crashing Dom's frat party tonight. Although that would be fun."_

_"Hell yeah it would," Zoe said, grinning. Joey leaned down from the couch to high-five her, and Charlie watched her face color, her eyes shift away almost shyly._

_"I'm talking about planning," Mac said. "I'm talking about ideas. About how people kill because it's impulsive or it fills a need, but never out of intellectual curiosity. And I think about it sometimes, about what would happen if the police had to go up against someone who had no emotional investment in the murders he committed."_

_"Cold rationality," Tyler nodded. "I like it."_

_"These wouldn't be murders of passion. They wouldn't be murders borne of some sick desire or need. None of us, as far as I know, have a violent history. None of us ever tortured animals, or wet the bed, or displayed any of the stereotypical signs."_

_"You might want to ask Joey about wetting the bed," Zoe said._

_"You're hilarious," Joey groused._

_"If we chose to do this, we'd be unstoppable," Mac said._

_There was silence as they considered. The record reached its end and white noise hissed from the speakers as the needle skipped._

_"Knowing you," Charlie said finally. "This is going to be a contest of sorts."_

_"Of course," Mac gave them a crooked grin. "We forget this conversation ever happened. We go about our lives, graduate college, drink to excess, get laid as much as we goddamn can. But at some undefined point in the future, one of us will decide it's_ time. _And that lucky first person will send the others a sign."_

_"That sounds fantastic," Joey said. His eyes were half-mast. It was fairly certain that he'd have no trouble with the first part of Mac's request._

_"When you receive the sign," Mac said. "You start. Murder. Detached. Last one standing wins."_

_"So, what? A race to be arrested?" Charlie frowned._

_"A race to prove your superiority. If all of you are as smart as I hope, none of us will ever be arrested." Mac sat back against the couch. "And if not, we'll have our ranking, won't we?"_

_"Hell," Zoe said. "I'm in."_

_"Me too," Joey nodded his head enthusiastically._

_"Yeah," Tyler said._

_"Why not?" Charlie said, laughing, already reaching for another beer._

__  
*

"We never spoke of it again," Charlie said. He stood silhouetted against the window, the sun setting behind him. His voice was rough. "It was like all of the other things we'd discussed but never carried out. I thought it was purely hypothetical. Murder for sport, c'mon. It's a crazy idea." 

"And now this flower has you thinking otherwise," Mulder said. 

"It's a fucking Gerber daisy. It has to mean something." 

Scully shook her head, sighed. "Charlie, I think it means you need to get help." 

"What, like AA? Right." He barked out a laugh. "Great. A lot of good that will do when Mac comes calling. Mack the fucking Knife." 

"Five serial killers working in tandem would go against everything in the book," Mulder said. 

"Mac doesn't go by any book. He writes his own." Charlie shook his head. "Besides, it wouldn't be in tandem. This is not collaboration. It's competition." 

"Well," Scully said, standing up with a wince. Her hands moved to her lower back. "Let us know if you get any more flowers." 

She started down the stairs without checking to see if Mulder followed.


	4. Chapter 4

*

They drove Charlie back to the marina in silence, Mulder conscious of the stiff way that Scully held herself. She did not say good night when her brother climbed out of the car. 

Mulder watched Charlie recede in the rear view mirror, his face cast in red from the tail lights, a lonely figure in the gathering dark.

"What do you think?" Mulder asked finally. 

"I think," Scully said, letting out a hiss of air between her teeth. "That he's full of shit." 

He nodded, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. "You have to admit that the flower is pretty strange." 

"Mulder, he probably mailed it to himself," she sighed. "I know you want to take this at face value, but you don't know him. This is classic Charlie. He's always had this pathological need for attention." 

Mulder nodded slowly, troubled. "You're right. I don't know him at all." 

She raised her eyebrows at him, looked ready to leap into battle. "You think this is a possibility, then? That across the country, three other people are just going to walk away from their jobs and families and go on a killing spree?" 

He shrugged. "It might bear investigating." 

"Then by all means," she muttered. "Go and investigate." 

He gripped the wheel a bit tighter than he'd intended to, his knuckles standing out in sharp white relief. He did not respond.

"Mulder," she said after a moment, her voice disarmingly soft. 

He inclined his head towards her, waited for her to continue. 

"Why did my mom call you?" 

He kept his eyes on the road. "She was worried about Charlie. She came to see me." 

"She came to see you," she repeated, her eyebrows arching in an almost comical display of disbelief. "When?" 

"Friday night." 

She let out a little breath that might have been a laugh. "My mother." 

"Your mother," he agreed.

"Mulder, she doesn't even--" her voice trailed off and she looked out the window, suddenly interested in the passing scenery. 

"Like me?" he offered. "I know." 

"No," she said. "That's not what I meant." 

He shrugged.

"She likes you. She's always liked you. It's just that--" 

"I'm the bearer of bad tidings." 

"Something like that," she sighed. "Some of that's my fault." 

Yes, he thought, but he would never say it. He could still recall the trembling, desperate anger in Maggie's voice when he'd called from Pennsylvania to let her know that Dana had begun cancer treatment. Sorry, Mrs. Scully, your daughter's in the hospital again. Injured? No, not at all, just terminally ill. She didn't tell you? Must have slipped her mind. Would you mind packing her an overnight bag? 

"She does," Scully said again. "Like you. There was a period of time where she was extremely fond of you, always asking about you. It was before-- before the bad things began to pile up." 

He was quiet, had something new to pick at in his brain. Their partnership _had_ been characterized by bad things piling up. Somehow, he'd just never looked at it that way. 

"She never stopped liking you," Scully said, as though realizing she was digging herself into a hole and attempting to talk her way out of it. "Circumstances being what they were, she just--"

"Scully," he said, glancing over at her. "Stop. It's okay. We don't have to psychoanalyze your mother." 

She leaned her head back against the headrest with a tired little sigh. "I guess I'm just trying to figure out why she'd call you." 

"She had a dream," he said finally. "About Charlie. About something bad happening to him. She had the same kind of dream before you were taken."

"Oh," Scully said. 

"She thought you might laugh at her." 

"Mulder, it's been years since I would have laughed at that." 

He did not know what to say, kept his eyes on the road. 

"I've seen things," she said quietly. "You know that." 

"Scully," he said, taking a deep breath. "Do you think there's any chance that what your brother is saying could be true?" 

He felt her eyes on him. "I guess there's a chance. There... I don't really know him anymore, Mulder." 

"I don't think you ever really know anyone," he said in a quiet voice. "Not really." 

She was silent.

He pulled up in front of her apartment building, looked over at her tired face. Ask me to stay, he thought. 

She rubbed her eyes, shifted in her seat. "Thank you for humoring my mother." 

"Anytime," he said. 

He reached between them to unclip her seat belt, conscious of the warmth of her body, the brush of her jacket fabric against the back of his hand. 

I miss you, he thought. Oh, god. 

She smiled at him, a sad, guarded little smile. "Good night, Mulder." 

"Good night," he said, watched her go.

*

He was restless when he returned home, paced the rooms of his apartment. His fish tank burbled in the corner, same as it always had. 

He sat down at his computer, logged in to the FBI database, ran a background check on Charles Scully. He found nothing of note beyond a DWI conviction in 1995. 

Still curious, he ran the name through an internet search engine, was surprised to find Charlie's name on the byline of several _National Geographic_ articles. A writer, then. And one with an adventurous spirit. 

He opened the first article he found, an account of undiscovered wonders in Cairo. The writing was solid, passionate, _together_ in a way that the inebriated man on his boat did not seem capable of producing. 

The Charlie he'd met didn't look like a man with a job, or any prospects. 

He skimmed the next few articles, looking at the dates. The latest one he could find was stamped 1993. He sat back on the couch, thought about it for a moment. Scully had said Pete was eight years old. Maybe Charlie had put aside his travel career for family. 

Maybe he'd resented that, a little bit. 

Mulder considered it, turned it over in his head. Charlie might have felt trapped by domesticity, trading freedom and adventure for suburbia. It might have been okay at first, but it would have started to rankle. He'd have turned to drink, maybe something he'd always struggled with. The DWI conviction would bear that up. He'd drink, and he'd fester, and eventually he'd crack. 

"And that's how you wind up living on a boat by yourself," Mulder murmured.

Charlie had walked out on his family, but had not unhitched his boat from the marina. He had not gone off in search of grand adventures. Some part of him remained tethered. He'd positioned himself with an escape route in sight, but had not used it. Not yet.

Mulder wondered at that. Did Charlie remain nearby out of a sense of obligation to his family, or because he was, as Scully said, feeding a need for attention? Did he want to sit alone in his miserable, drunken glory, watching his family come to him and beg for his time? Did he want someone to worry over him? Failing at attracting sufficient attention with his drinking, might he turn to a bigger boogeyman? 

He thought about it, decided that it did not sound quite right. Charlie had seemed frightened. He was showboating, yes, the desire for attention bled in to his mannerisms, but he was not lying. Not entirely. 

Mulder went back to his internet search, found a collection of archived short stories from a university newspaper. The writing was rougher but still strong, full of promise. More than one short story seemed to be a thinly disguised diatribe against a family he found stifling.

He scrolled down past poetry entries from other students, paused as a name leapt out at him.

>   
>  The Truth  
>  Maxwell Gerber
> 
> I am better than you  
>  Don't forget it  
> 

Mulder leaned back in his chair, studied the two short sentences. A warning, masquerading as bad poetry? Charlie had indicated that his friend felt himself superior to others, desired to prove it.

"What have you been up to for the past fourteen years, Mac?" he murmured, typing the name into his search engine. 

The results were instantaneous and plentiful. 

Maxwell Gerber, by all accounts, was the wildly successful CEO of a New York based dot com called Silverline Industries. His name appeared in numerous news articles, often to high praise. A slow-loading picture revealed Mac to be a strikingly handsome man with a lush mop of dark hair that he wore just a little too long and a penchant for expensive suits. He was smiling a rakish smile, his arm wrapped around a stunning blonde woman. In front of them, favoring the camera with a shy grin, was a small dark-haired girl who appeared to have inherited her parents' genetic gifts. 

The caption under the photo identified woman as his wife, Gabrielle, and daughter Devon. It was, Mulder thought, the picture of well-heeled domestic bliss. Mac Gerber did not look like the kind of man who would moonlight as a serial killer.

Still, Mulder couldn't help but wonder.

*

Being inside the Hoover building was something of a surreal experience. He'd spent the majority of his waking hours in the basement, had felt as comfortable there as he did anywhere. But since awakening in his hospital bed, feeling like his innards had been removed and rearranged, nothing seemed quite right anymore. 

He'd returned to a life he'd been displaced from. His office was no longer his, his partner was assigned to someone else, was pregnant with someone's child. His colleagues, who had usually given him a wide berth, now felt free to ogle him openly. 

His superiors didn't seem to know what to do with him. He had no real assignments. Until the paperwork was duly sorted and he was officially listed as among the living, he could not be assigned a desk or any investigative duties. 

Skinner had given him back his badge and gun, a gesture of good faith. He put in a few hours each day in the bullpen, transcribing wiretaps, learning more than he ever could have wanted to know about corrupt dot com CEOs. But the fact remained that, until certain technicalities could be sorted, Mulder didn't really exist. 

He did have specific orders to stay the hell away from the X Files. Which was a shame, really, since the basement office drew him in like a moth to the flame. 

It still looked much the way he had left it. Pencils still peppered the ceiling tiles. Doggett didn't strike him as a pencils-in-the-ceiling type of guy. He had a sudden, unpleasant mental image of Scully climbing up on the desk to replace them each time one fell down, and he looked away. 

It was Monday morning, the bane of the working man. Since he'd often worked through the weekends and nights, he'd never cared much about the days of the week. He imagined Doggett was the kind of guy who might gripe about Mondays. 

He was as freshly pressed and as far from dead as he could muster. The scabs that had clung to his cheeks had fallen off onto the shower floor as he'd scrubbed his face, and he'd peered into the steamy mirror to reveal a visage that was, more or less, undamaged. The jagged scar on his chest had begun to itch and flake in places, revealing smooth skin underneath. 

He was like a new man.

It frightened him to think that he'd have no lasting reminders of his ordeal. It would be as if it had never happened. 

"Mulder?" Scully's voice, heavy with concern, startled him. He turned, leaning against the edge of his old desk, watching as she stepped cautiously into the office. 

"I thought you might want to take a look at the man Mac Gerber grew up to be," Mulder said, passing her a manila envelope. 

"CEO of Silverline Industries," she said without opening the file. "Wife, daughter. More money than God. An all around model citizen." 

He smiled. "You did your homework." 

"I put in a call to his company this morning," Scully said. "His secretary told me he was on vacation." 

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "You don't say." 

"Any guesses as to what this vacation might entail?"

"Ten to one he's not at Disney World," Mulder said. "You up for another visit to your brother?"

"Let me just leave a note for Agent Doggett." 

He scowled but stood quietly by the door while she scribbled something on a piece of paper. Of course, ordinary colleagues did things like that-- let the other know when they'd be out of the office. He and Scully had developed their own sort of rhythm over the years, coming and going at their own pace. The closer they'd grown, the less inclined they were to stray far. 

But, he thought, this was a different Scully than the one he'd known. And he was nothing like John Doggett. 

She looked up as she finished writing her note, her eyes daring him to say something.

"Where is the esteemed Agent Doggett this morning?" he asked. 

"He had a meeting with Kersh." 

"Ah," Mulder said.

She cut her eyes at him but said nothing, and he resisted the urge to touch her arm as they walked down the hallway towards the elevator. If he squinted, if he ignored her slower pace and slight waddle, he could almost convince himself it was like old times. 

*

Charlie was standing on the dock, hosing down the side of his boat when they arrived. He grinned at them, ginger hair waving in the stiff breeze coming off the water. 

"Back again, eh?" he said. 

"I did some digging into Maxwell Gerber," Mulder said.

"Convinced?"

"I've got some suspicions." 

"Good," Charlie said. "Because I got another package in the mail today, and last time I checked it wasn't my birthday." 

Mulder glanced at Scully, who was already reaching into her pocket for gloves. The sight warmed him, some things never changed. 

"Has anyone touched this besides you?" she asked, running one latex encased finger over the rough edges of the cardboard box. 

"Well, the mailman, obviously. Michelle, when she brought it over. And ten thousand other people at the postal agency. It was sent overnight express. But I haven't opened it, if that's what you mean." 

There was no return address on the package, just Charlie's name and address scrawled in thick black marker. Scully produced a pocket knife and slit the side of the box open. 

"Walt Whitman," she said, lifting a book out of its bed of styrofoam nuggets. 

"Tyler," Charlie murmured, shutting his eyes. 

"There's a clipping," Mulder said as Scully opened the book, a thin piece of paper fluttering from the pages.

"Texas," she said, scanning the text. "A woman shot to death." 

"And then there were three," Charlie said. 

"I'm taking this back to headquarters," Scully said. "I'll see if they can pull any prints." 

"He'll know better than that," Charlie groaned. "They both will. They'll follow a pattern. They'll want the police to know it's a serial case. But they won't be stupid enough to tie the evidence to themselves. They've had years to plan this." 

"Your friend Tyler seems to have wasted no time," Mulder said, staring hard at Charlie. "For a group of people you claim never spoke of these plans outside of one drunken conversation." 

"I guess I was the only one who didn't take it seriously."

Scully muttered something, causing both Mulder and Charlie to look up at her in surprise. 

"What was that?" Charlie's voice had gone low. 

"I said," she raised her eyes to meet his. "That it's not surprising." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you engaged in a drunken conversation about serial killing, made a _pact_ with these people, and instead of being disturbed by the idea you simply held it as a fond college memory." 

"I'm sorry," Charlie said, his voice dripping acid. "We can't all have fond college memories of sleeping with our professors." 

Scully recoiled as if slapped.

"Hey--" Mulder said, stepping forward. 

She whirled to look at him, stopped him cold. She then turned that glare on her brother. 

"You've obviously got something to say, Charlie," her voice was deadly calm. "So say it." 

"I just think it's funny," he said, picking up the hose and returning his focus to the side of the boat. "You and mom and Bill, you all say I need so much attention. But really, Dana, it's all you." 

"Excuse me?" 

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," he jerked the hose, sending a haphazard spray of water along the hull. "You finish med school, the shining crown jewel of the Scully family. But that's not enough for you. You have to throw everyone for a loop by running off to join the FBI. Dad--" his voice shook. "Dad dies, and somehow it's all about you. Your guilt. You know, Dana, you _should_ feel guilty. You killed him." 

She sucked in a breath, her face suddenly white. 

"For Christ's sake," Mulder said, touching her hand. "Your sister's pregnant--" 

"Oh yes," Charlie said, laughing now. He was on a roll, short of being struck by lightning nothing was stopping his momentum. "You know, I'm surprised you haven't noticed this pattern by now, Mulder. It's always All. About. Dana." 

He started to move forward, was stopped by the gentle pressure of Scully's fingers in his hand. "Just let him go," she said. 

"Michelle gets pregnant," Charlie said. "Dana disappears for three months and turns up in a coma. They talk about disconnecting life support, no hope, we all make our peace and then-- suddenly-- she's fine. Never better!" 

He turned off the hose, let it drop to his feet, whirled to face them, red-faced, a grin still playing on his lips. "Bill and Tara announce that they're expecting a baby-- Dana suddenly has cancer. She has Mom and Bill spending all of their time in the hospital just waiting, waiting for her to die-- and then she's magically better. Just like that. Overnight. Then it's a tragedy because she can't have kids. So what happens? Tara goes into labor and Dana finds some kid she magically claims in her daughter. In spite of the fact that she's never been pregnant. And the kid dies. So instead of celebrating Matthew's birthday, everyone's gotta go to a funeral for her imaginary daughter."

Mulder felt sick. Scully's fingers were cold against his. 

"I lose my job," Charlie said, his voice cracking a little bit. "The goddamn piece of shit office job I took so I could provide for my kids, and Dana announces she's pregnant and that the baby's father has disappeared." He shot a venomous look in Mulder's direction. "Pregnant. In case you weren't keeping score, this is the girl who can't have kids. So Michelle files for divorce, and you turn up dead. Mulder. DEAD. You think I got any of Mom's attention while poor pregnant Dana was home mourning? No. So, you tell me, what happens next? Three months go by, and then they're... what? Supposedly digging up your grave? And you're somehow still alive down there? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Is there a person alive who bought that story?" 

He said nothing. But his mind was reeling.

"She," Charlie said, pointing one trembling finger at his sister. "Is the reason for every bad thing that has befallen this family. Bill blames you, Mulder. He's awfully protective of his baby sister, and he sure as hell doesn't have much use for anything I have to say. But I think I'll place the blame squarely where it belongs. Right on my sister's pretty, treacherous little head." 

"Is that all?" Scully asked stiffly. 

"Fuck," Charlie said, climbing back into his boat. "Maybe I should have been a serial killer after all." 

Scully gently removed her fingers from Mulder's, turned and walked away with as much poise and dignity as her condition would allow. 

Mulder stood his ground for a moment, watching the man in front of him with a new perspective. "You're wrong," he said finally.

Charlie gave a dismissive wave as he sat down in the folding chair, turned his face towards the water. "So what if I am?" 

*

Scully was already in the car when he arrived, seatbelt buckled, steady gaze aimed out the window. She did not meet his eye as he settled behind the wheel. 

"Scully?" he said softly, unsure how to proceed. 

"I never realized how much he hated me," her voice was quiet, her face still turned away from him. 

"That's not hatred," Mulder said. "That's anger. Fear. Your brother's scared or he would never have asked to see you about this." 

She nodded, still not meeting his gaze, and he did not know if she was agreeing with him or just trying to make him stop talking. 

"I'd like to go home," she said. 

*

I can do this, Mulder thought. 

He'd sat in his car outside of Scully's apartment for close to an hour, engine running, watching the sun go down. The gift wrapped box sat on the seat next to him. 

He had not intended to give her Samantha's rag doll, not consciously. But he'd brought it with him from the storage garage, and it had sat on his desk in his apartment for the next day, watching him with dispassionate stitched eyes. 

He and Scully had returned to the Hoover building following their meeting with Charlie. He'd followed her down to the basement, but stopped short of entering the office at the sight of Doggett behind his desk, phone tucked against his ear. 

He'd gone back upstairs instead, sat at his temporary desk in the bullpen for half an hour, listening to the hustle and bustle around him. He transcribed an hour's worth of phone conversations between a CEO named Blake and his stock broker, added to a growing pile of evidence of insider trading. No one asked him to run a background check, and no one looked up when he left. 

When he'd returned to his apartment, he'd sat down on his couch and contemplated the doll. 

It was tangled up in happy memories. His mother had smiled, hummed to herself as she'd sewed. He could remember flashes of impatience, eagerness for the baby to be born, wanting a ready-made playmate. He'd believed her with wide-eyed certainty when she told him she was positive she was having a girl. 

It had been a happy time. 

He'd thought Scully could, almost assuredly, use a little dose of happiness, so he'd wrapped the doll up. She always did enjoy tearing into presents. He'd congratulated himself on his own thoughtfulness as he left his apartment. 

And somehow, during the twenty minute drive to her place, he'd lost his nerve. 

I can do this, he told himself again. 

His mind returned to what Charlie had said in the height of his anger. _"Dana announces she's pregnant and that the baby's father has disappeared."_ The words echoed in his mind, again and again. 

He lay his forehead against the cool window glass. Was that true? She hadn't denied it, but she hadn't leapt to her own defense on a number of things her brother had said. If it was true, why the hell hadn't she said something? 

The easiest thing for him to believe was that she'd continued her in vitro attempts without him. Maybe she'd decided to give up on their wretched genetic luck and used donor eggs. Or hell, maybe after everything it turned out that he'd been the problem. Maybe her failure to conceive had nothing to do with her own body. Maybe she'd tried another path, hadn't wanted to tell him until she was certain it had worked. Maybe she had just never gotten the chance--

Or, maybe she hadn't been trying. Maybe it had been purely accidental, the product of--

He sat up, rubbed his eyes. The thought was laughable. The product of what? Short of alien intervention, there was no way that Scully could conceive the conventional way. They both knew that. Right, he asked himself. _Right?_

He leaned over, grabbed the package. 

*

I can do this, Mulder thought with more certainty, once he realized how easy it was to slip into a familiar, comfortable banter with Scully. She'd answered the door, her voice slightly nasally, as if she'd been crying before he'd arrived. But her eyes were dry, and he was pleased to see her smiling as she teased him, even more pleased to note that there was none of that terrible expectancy in her voice, that her eyes were not begging him to answer a question he didn't know the answer to. 

He kept the tone light, did not mention Charlie. She followed his lead. 

He'd even slipped in a joke about the pizza man and paternity suspects, just to show he was paying attention. She'd smirked at him, but hadn't offered up any information. 

Maybe she's not telling you because she thinks it's ridiculous that you'd even have to ask, a small voice spoke up in his head. 

Then, right in the middle of their enjoyable repartee, she keeled over in pain, and for the second time in one year, Mulder felt his heart stop. 

*

It wouldn't be the first time, he thought, standing impotently in the hospital hallway with his cell phone to his ear, that he'd left her behind at an important moment to follow up on a mysterious phone call.

He'd been shocked and a bit stung when a surly nurse had dismissed him from Scully's side, had stood alone in the hallway and watched her wheeled out of his sight. 

A year ago, he'd thought, no one would have questioned his right to be there. 

A year ago, even if they had, he wouldn't have listened. 

The sudden appearance of Doggett further irritated him, and he'd been momentarily grateful when his phone had interrupted their strained attempts at civil conversation. 

But the woman on the phone wanted him to leave the hospital, and he'd hemmed and hawed and fidgeted and finally acquiesced when she told him the investigation had something to do with Doggett. Maybe he'd have a chance to prove the bastard wasn't such a choirboy after all. 

He'd never been one for waiting rooms anyway. 

"Where are you going?" Doggett called. 

"Just taking a walk," he said over his shoulder, not slowing down. 

*

Tyler Moore chewed on a pencil eraser. It was an old habit from his childhood that reared its ugly head when he felt stressed. Although it had been years since he'd actually put pencil to paper, he kept a supply of them around for just this purpose. The wood on the pencil clasped between his lips was already pocked with tooth marks. 

He stared at the blinking cursor on his computer screen. 

The woman had been afraid of him, had shied away from the sight of him as he'd unfolded his considerable frame from the shadows in the parking garage. She'd been wearing a tan linen business suit. Her skin had been pale, a chunky necklace against her throat. Big blue beads. He'd wanted to strangle her, wanted to get up close and feel the life gasp out of her. 

He'd shot her instead, because strangling was what Tyler would do. And he hadn't been Tyler in the parking garage, because that would be making it personal. 

Tyler Moore was a moderately successful crime novelist. He was divorced, amicably, with two small children he saw every weekend. He lived in a neat home, never missed a PTA meeting. He was not the kind of man who would crouch behind a partition in a dark parking garage on the other side of town, wearing a bandana and a black hooded sweatshirt, ready to take the life of the first woman he saw. 

Skip Wayne was that kind of man. 

In the years following graduation, Tyler had written a manuscript that had sold for a modest amount of money. He'd met Diane, married her in a lavish, well-attended affair. He'd put a down payment on a nice house outside of Austin. He'd also rented an apartment in a less desirable neighborhood, paid the first six months up front in cash.

The townhouse belonged to Skip Wayne. While Tyler's closets held jeans and neatly pressed button down shirts, Skip Wayne's held baggy sweatshirts, cargo pants, and stained t-shirts. Skip favored baseball caps, while Tyler went out bareheaded. 

Skip paid rent every month, in person, in cash. There were tattoos on his hands, distinctive ones, and he made sure the landlord saw them. Skip thought about killing people a lot. If he were ever discovered, no one would ever go on television to tell the world that he'd "seemed like such a nice guy." 

Tyler shifted in his seat, looked at the blank page. He shut his eyes, saw crimson bloom on the woman's linen jacket. 

He began to type.

>   
>  She heard a sound, looked nervously over her shoulder. Her husband had been cautioning her for years about using parking garages late at night, and she had heretofore brushed off his worries. But tonight, suddenly, she found herself wishing she had heeded his advice.  
> 

He chewed his pencil. Bits of pink eraser clung to his lips.

>   
>  The man that unfurled from the shadows was enormous, broad of shoulder and tightly muscled. He advanced towards her at a fast clip, and before she even had a chance to turn and try to run for the elevator his hands were around her throat, squeezing, choking the life from her.  
> 

That was how it should have gone, he thought. If he'd been the one to do it.

But Tyler Moore was not a murderer. He just wrote about them. 

*

Mulder had grown accustomed to the sights and smells of hospital corridors, and barely glanced in the direction of the nurses he passed on the way to her room. 

He'd been away from her side for a little over 24 hours, had learned more about Scully's new partner than he'd ever wanted to know, and he thought maybe they'd come to some sort of understanding. At the very least, the urge to strangle him was not quite as strong. That seemed like progress. It also seemed like something that might make Scully happy. 

Scully was sleeping, but he woke her anyway. He felt a prickle of guilt as she blinked up at him, guilt that he'd remained away from her bedside, guilt to be waking her so late. 

She smiled at the sight of him, didn't seem at all irritated or bewildered, and he realized that it was what she expected of him, to haunt her, ghostlike, at odd hours. He had never been beholden to the posted visiting hours, save for the time he thought she might really be gone for good, and even then she'd been surprised to see him. 

"What did the doctor say?" he asked her, watching her face cautiously. 

Her voice was weak but steady as she told him she'd had a partial abruption, and promptly explained what that meant before he had to ask. He had a brief urge to drive back to the dock and drown Charlie in the murky harbor waters. It would not be hard. The other man was likely inebriated past the point of fighting back. 

He suppressed the desire, instead giving Scully a small smile. 

"You're going to be fine?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. 

He almost staggered under the weight of his own relief and gratitude, but instead surprised himself by reaching out his hand to touch her belly, spreading his fingers across its firm, rounded smoothness. Some emotion he could not quite name had begun to bubble up inside his chest, and he could not help but return the sweet smile she favored him with. 

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, and Mulder watched and felt something break loose inside of him. He thought he might be staking his claim. 

He was going to be a father.


	5. Chapter 5

*

"Mr. Mulder, I really don't see the point in all of this." Dr. Smith looked cross, his hair exceptionally frizzed, the frown lines between his eyes deep. 

"Can't be too careful," Mulder said.

"You were here a week ago. I gave you a complete physical. Blood tests, x-rays, it was all normal." 

"That was last week." 

"Why are you here?" Smith leaned against the counter. "Really?"

Mulder sighed, shut his eyes. He had grown increasingly preoccupied with his health since awakening, but was at a loss to explain exactly why. There was a part of him, an ugly part, that wondered if he was hoping that the doctor would find something, something bad, something that would allow him to resume his rightful place in the ground. 

He thought about Billy Miles, and the brief blip of two heartbeats on a monitor. He wondered what he'd do if the doctor ever found anything abnormal.

"If I start to turn into something else," he said finally. "I want to be the first to know."

The older man regarded him with bushy eyebrows raised. "And what, may I ask, do you think you might turn into?"

"Just take another set of x-rays," Mulder said wearily. "I'm paying cash." 

*

"I got the results from the lab," Scully said.

Mulder stood on the curb outside of Smith's office, squinting in the sun, phone tucked against his ear. "And?"

"No prints on the contents," she said. "The lab tech thought I was playing a joke." 

"Did you tell him anything?" 

"Just that we were taking the threat seriously."

"What threat?" he muttered, sliding behind the wheel of his car. 

"That's exactly what he said." 

He sighed. "I'll float it by some of the boys at VCU, if anyone will hear me out, but I don't think they're going to find anything worth following up on. No one is going to buy into a serial killer theory based on a newspaper clipping and a story about a drunken night twelve years ago." He turned the key in the ignition. "Hell, I'm having trouble believing it, and I see conspiracies everywhere." 

"Mulder," she said, and something in her voice made him pay attention.

"Yeah?"

"What if he's right?"

"You're supposed to be the skeptic in this partnership."

"We're not partners," she said, and immediately fell silent. He was glad he was not looking at her.

"No," he said softly. "I guess we're not."

"Mulder--" her voice was pained.

"You're breaking up," he said, pulling the phone away from his ear. "Can't hear you. Sorry. Gotta go." 

He started towards his apartment and changed his mind, made an abrupt u-turn in the road, earned angry honks from other drivers.

He drove straight to the airport.

*

Mulder found himself in a snarl of springtime traffic moving towards the east end of Long Island. He sighed, rolled his shoulders to ease the ache that had developed in his neck. His rental car inched along a one lane highway that meandered past scenic farm stands and pricey boutiques. 

Signs of affluence were all around, from the stately homes to the makes and models of cars on the road. The Hamptons were the playground of the rich. This was not an area accustomed to violent crime. 

After an excruciating wait, he turned off onto the tree-lined street that housed Maxwell Gerber's impressive estate. The house was set back, barely visible behind a thick row of privet hedges. A red Porsche gleamed in the driveway behind a wrought iron gate. 

He sat and studied the house for a moment. There was nothing out of place, no macabre accoutrements, nothing to make the grounds stand out from the other million dollar homes around it. 

Who are you, he wondered, and where will you make your first mistake? 

He moved on, navigating the winding back roads in search of the second address on his list. It proved to be an equally handsome mansion, with an equally imposing wrought iron gate and hedge row. 

The gate was open, strung with police tape. A lone police cruiser sat in front of the house. The officer in the car flashed his lights at Mulder as he crept by.

"Police business," he said. "Move along." 

"FBI," Mulder held up his badge. 

"FBI? For this?" 

"We're investigating a possible connection." 

The officer reached for his radio, spoke into it as Mulder pulled his rental car to the side of the road. 

A small man in a gray suit emerged from the mansion, picking his way carefully down white marble steps. He lifted the police tape so Mulder could duck underneath. 

"You with the FBI?" 

"Fox Mulder," he said, once more producing his badge. 

"Detective Murray," the man said, offering his hand. "I'd ask what the hell you're doing here, but frankly..." his voice trailed off and he gave a weak shrug. "There's something about this case that just doesn't make sense." 

"Most of my cases don't make sense," Mulder smiled. "How so?" 

"I've got a living room window jimmied open. On the surface, this looks like a burglary gone wrong." Murray ran a finger along the scarred windowpane. "But if I didn't know any better, I'd swear this was a hit." 

"A hit?" Mulder raised his eyebrows.

"Well, yeah. Nothing was taken." 

"You're sure about that?" 

"The family's been through the house. All of her jewelry is accounted for. She had three hundred dollars cash in her wallet. The drawers in her bedroom were opened and emptied out, but it looks like it was all for show." 

"Like the killer wanted you to think he was there for some other reason," Mulder said. 

"Exactly. It's some spooky shit, pardon the language." 

Mulder gave the detective a half smile as they stepped into the house. Their footsteps echoed on the gleaming marble floor. 

"These houses have security systems you could only dream about," Murray said. "Closed circuit televisions, motion detectors, direct connections to the police department."

"It wasn't enough," Mulder murmured.

"No," Murray said. "That's the thing. Whoever did this disabled the security system. It was a clean job. Professional. But I've seen eighth grade kids do better jobs busting in through windows than this guy. Like I said, it doesn't make any sense." 

"All for show," Mulder said, moving into a white-carpeted living room. 

There was a spray of crimson on the carpet in front of a formidable stone fireplace. The wallpaper was spattered with dried, rust-colored stains. 

"You're here about Blake, aren't you?" Murray folded his arms, gave Mulder an appraising look. "I know you feds have been keeping tabs on him." 

Mulder blinked, the name familiar. "Warren Blake? The dot com CEO?" 

"Yeah," Murray said. "You know, most of those companies have been dropping like flies lately. The stock market being what it is. But Blake Industries and Silverline are still going strong, got themselves a fierce rivalry going on." 

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "You think this could be connected to Silverline?" 

"Silverline? Are you kidding me?" Murray guffawed. "Edna Sullivan, that's the deceased, was a big shot writer for the _New York Times._ Business section. She made Max Gerber-- that's Silverline's CEO, _hell_ of a nice guy-- look like the second coming of Christ. She was one of his biggest supporters. She tried to make it her mission to single handedly run Warren Blake out of business." 

Mulder rocked on his heels for a moment, thinking. He'd listened to hours of tapes of Blake in his time in the bullpen, had noted the growing evidence that the man was not entirely on the level. The FBI was hoping to make an arrest soon, but for fraud, not murder. 

He looked around the room, tried to ignore the sad bloodstain on the floor. His eyes lit on the mantel and he stopped to examine the framed photos gathered there. 

Mac Gerber smiled back at him, his arm tucked around a beaming older woman. 

"That's her," Murray said, inclining his head at the picture. "Gerber lives right around the corner. Blake, too. They're all neighbors. Things can get pretty dicey out here. A lot of big personalities running around, with a lot of big money to burn." 

He offered Mulder a file folder. 

"Like I said, if I had to guess, I'd call it a hit. But I've never seen a hit that looks quite like this." 

Mulder flipped it open, looked at the photos. They were black and white, stark, horrifying. Edna Sullivan, recognizable from the candid shots on her mantel yet no longer smiling, lay in an undignified heap on her once-bright white carpet. A silk nightgown had been carved away from her body with a series of deep, brutal knife strokes. The carpet around her was heavy with dark blood. A gaping wound arced from one ear to the other, leaving her throat open in a grotesque parody of a grin.

"Jesus," Mulder said, shutting the folder. He had seen worse in his time with the bureau, but not much. There were innumerable wells in the dark recesses of the human spirit from which violence could spring. The way the woman in the photos had been treated spoke of a deep, terrifying anger.

"Hit men aren't usually that personal," Murray said. "Or that messy. They don't usually like to get their hands dirty." 

"No prints?"

"No prints. No hair, no fiber, no nothing. It's as if this guy was a fucking ghost." 

"Or Mack the Knife," Mulder said under his breath, already walking towards the door. 

"Hey," Murray called. "You'll let me know if you guys get anything on Blake?" 

"You'll be the first to know," Mulder called over his shoulder.

*

His route out of the Hamptons took him by the cemetery, and his eye caught on a line of expensive cars parked along the road. 

He pulled over, peered through the windshield at the group of mourners clustered around a gravesite. The detective had not mentioned anything about funeral arrangements. The burial had almost certainly been delayed due to the murder investigation. Had he been fortunate enough to stumble onto Edna Sullivan's interment? 

He pulled behind a shiny black BMW and got out, made his way to the edge of the mourners. Standing up in front of the group was a handsome man with thick black hair, his hands clasped in front of him, tears in his eyes. 

Mac Gerber. 

He spoke, and the crowd hung on his words. He wiped his eye, and his observers sniffled. He smiled, and they smiled with him through their tears. 

"Edna was a kind soul," he said, struggling for composure. "Generous and altruistic. A wonderful human being, and a writer of immeasurable talent. I am honored to have been able to call her a friend, a mentor, a kindred spirit." 

The woman nearest to Mulder let out a muffled sob and fumbled for tissues. 

"Her abrupt departure from this world has left a void that can never be filled," Gerber said, his voice thick with just the right amount of emotion. He turned and touched the coffin with one smooth tanned hand. "I will miss you, my friend." 

The bright spring sun peeked through the trees, dappling the mourners, and glinting off of Gerber's hair in the most becoming way. The people gathered around looked to him with damp eyes filled with something like reverence. 

Mulder was uneasy among the headstones, moving along the outskirts of the gathered group, keeping Gerber in his sight. He had, once, been quite comfortable amongst such monuments. Now the presence of the quiet tombs left him feeling queasy, nervous. He could not help but imagine the moldering denizens writhing and clawing at the lining of their coffins, silently screaming for help. 

"Before we say our final farewell," Gerber said, glancing quickly at his wife, more radiant in person than she appeared in photographs. She held a small child clutched to her chest, looked appropriately tragic and supportive as she locked eyes with her husband. 

"I'd like to take a moment to speak to you all, as a friend, as a neighbor, as someone who loved Edna dearly." His sleek dark head bowed under the undulating sunlight. "No one more than I feels the sting of the current rumors circulating around town. It is no secret that Warren Blake and I have had our share of professional differences-- but the insinuation that he might have had something to do with the tragedy we have all experienced is sickening. If I thought for even a moment that he--" He shook his head, looked up at the crowd with fever-bright, damp eyes. "I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that in this time of mourning we can look beyond our own petty creative differences and join together in pursuit of the truth. That is, after all, what Edna would have wanted." 

He turned back to the coffin. His daughter approached, holding out flowers. He took the bright blooms from her with a gentle smile, placed them on the gleaming mahogany lid as the coffin as its contents were lowered into the earth. His movements were graceful, refined, controlled. Practiced.

His grief appeared genuine; he was almost beautiful in his sorrow. Certainly the people in attendance were as much enthralled with him as they were with the proceedings. It was hard to look away.

Mulder watched as Gerber hugged his wife, gathered his daughter in his arms, and made his way back towards the line of parked cars. Men and women alike touched his shoulder, whispered words of condolence. 

"Mac!" Mulder called, moving quickly, just as the comely Gerber family stepped from the lush green grass onto pavement. "Hey, Mac!"

Gerber turned slowly, released his wife's hand. He fixed Mulder with a slit-eyed stare. "Can I help you?" 

"Mac, right?" Mulder said, grinning, sticking out his hand. 

Gerber looked down at Mulder's hand, did not offer his own. He let out a little chuckle, but the smile did not reach his eyes. "I'm sorry, no one's called me that in years." 

"Not since college, right?" 

Gerber raised his eyebrows, studying Mulder with new interest. "Do I know you?"

"Not yet," Mulder smiled, did not drop his gaze. 

"Max?" Gerber's wife asked, looking worried. 

Gerber reached out and squeezed her hand, did not look at her. 

"Are you a reporter?" she asked Mulder, frowning. She had tiny stress lines around her pretty blue eyes. 

"Honey," Gerber said. "Please. Take Devon to the car. I'll just be a minute." 

She did as asked, looking suspiciously over her shoulder towards Mulder as she walked away.

When she was out of earshot, Gerber let a lazy smile spread across his face. "Let's cut the crap." 

"Let's." 

"What do you really want?"

"The truth." 

"The truth," Gerber repeated. He smiled, looked down at the ground. When he looked back up, his eyes were hard. "The truth is that a very dear personal friend of mine has been murdered. This is a dark time for me, and for my family. We would appreciate our privacy." 

"Sure," Mulder said, stepping back. "All you had to do was ask." 

Gerber stared at him for a beat longer, before turning without a word and starting again towards his car. 

"Oh," Mulder called. "Mac?" 

Gerber turned again, his expression neutral.

"I don't normally pay much attention to flowers, but I just have to say-- those were some really nice ones you left at the grave. What were they? Gerber daisies?" 

Gerber's eye twitched. He smiled. "I wouldn't know. My wife handled the arrangements." 

*

He caught an evening flight out of New York and found himself back at his apartment under the harsh glare of street lights. He was tired, sore from traffic and travel, his mind on Gerber. 

The man had murdered his most vocal supporter. 

He'd done it for a laugh, Mulder thought. Nothing more than that. His ego would not let Blake take credit for the killing for long, but it had been worth it to him to make an enemy squirm. 

Gerber would kill again, and he'd do it soon. And this time the victim would have no personal connection to him, or to Blake. 

The pungent aroma of pizza hit him as soon as he opened his door and he realized that he had neglected to check the cars on the street outside. 

"Mulder," she said, lifting her head as he came around the corner. She was on his couch, one hand curled protectively over her stomach, the other fisted at her side. A pizza box sat on his coffee table. He did not want to see her, did not want to talk to her, yet his heart softened a bit at the sight of her there, looking dozy and rumpled. He had always found her irresistible when she was sleepy. He wondered how long she'd been waiting. 

He nudged the box open, raised his eyebrows at the grease-stained cardboard. "Nothing left?" 

She shrugged, gave him an apologetic look. "The baby was hungry." 

"Oh, the baby was hungry," he said, keeping his voice light, teasing. "And your own fondness for mushrooms had nothing to do with this." 

"I don't see any mushrooms," she said innocently. 

"Not anymore," he scoffed, letting the box fall shut and settling onto the couch next to her. 

She shut her eyes, leaned her head back. "Where have you been?"

"I took a trip to Long Island to see about Maxwell Gerber." 

She raised her eyebrows, her eyes still closed. "And?" 

"Your brother's right," he said. "He's dangerous." 

"So you think he did it." 

"I'm certain he did it. But proving it is going to be damn near impossible."

"We have to tell Charlie," she sighed. "He'll have to be careful." 

He studied her out of the corner of his eye, not used to seeing her so passive, so pliable. 

"I'll tell Charlie," he said.

"Okay," she mumbled, eyes still closed. 

"Everything all right?" 

"Mmm," she said. "Just keep talking. It's soporific." 

"I see," he said with a slow smile. "You come here, watch my television, eat my pizza, and now you fall asleep on my couch." 

"My pizza," she corrected.

"You couldn't even save me a scrap of crust--" 

"Mulder, what I said this morning," she lifted her head, looked at him, suddenly serious. 

"Shh," he said. "It doesn't matter." 

"It's not what I meant," she said. Her voice was low, drowsy, yet insistent. 

"Don't you ever listen?" he asked her gently. He tugged the blanket down from the back of the couch and tucked it around her. "Sleep." 

"Why can't we get this right?" she mumbled, sleepy and frustrated and sad. 

"You're right," he said. "This is all wrong." 

He stood up and she opened her eyes, frowned at him. 

"Come on," he said, tugging on her hand. 

She stood reluctantly, hesitated as he led her towards the bedroom. "Mulder--" 

"I'm not going to be stuck with the bill from your chiropractor," he said.

She laughed, did not meet his eye. 

He watched her stretch out on his bed, her careful slow movements a contrast from the last time he'd had her there. It was strange, he thought, to see such familiarity and uncertainty at the same time. 

The last time they'd been together had not felt like the last time. There had been no long slow goodbye. There had just been her breath, her hair, her mouth, his hands on the smooth strong planes of her body, the taste of her skin and her breath in his ear. He had gone to sleep and awakened knowing exactly where he stood. 

"Mulder?" a sleepy, questioning voice. He could craft a dictionary from the meanings in the way she said his name. 

"Sleep," he said, and went into his bathroom, looked at his unmarked face in the mirror. How many nights had he brushed his teeth, washed his face while she drifted to sleep in his bed? Not enough, he thought. There had not been enough. 

She was not asleep when he went back into his room. He could feel her awareness in the air, an electric presence. 

He slid into bed beside her, not touching, listened to her soft breaths in the dark, wondered if things would ever be the same again.


	6. Chapter 6

*

He awoke from a dreamless sleep, daylight creeping through the window blinds. He put out a hand instinctively for her, encountered only empty bedding, still faintly warm. 

He sat up, rubbed his face. He was halfway out of bed when he heard a toilet flush, the sound of running water. She came through the bathroom door looking rumpled and sleepy and slightly chagrined. 

"Morning," he said, surprised.

"I didn't mean to wake you." 

"You didn't." 

She gave him a faint smile, sat down on the edge of the bed, began to pull on her shoes with some effort. 

"Do you want some coffee?" he asked. "I've got decaf." 

"Um," she said.

He went on out of the room and into the kitchen without waiting for an answer, started the coffee pot. 

She came out of the bedroom and leaned against the counter in his kitchen, combing her hair out of her eyes with her fingers. She breathed in the coffee scent and he knew he had her. 

They stood quietly together, listening to the water hiss as it brewed. He poured her the first cup, watched her take the mug and wrap both hands around it. He was struck, suddenly, with a memory of their first morning together, she, swimming in his dress shirt, mussed hair and swollen lips, taking a mug from him and smiling that enigmatic smile. He'd taken the mug right back out of her hands then, set it on the counter, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Just because he could. 

He sighed, shut his eyes. 

"Mulder?" she said. 

"I think I'm gonna go to Texas," he said without opening his eyes.

"Yee-haw." 

He blinked at her, noted the little smirk dancing at the corner of her mouth. "I'd like to get an idea of what else we're up against." 

"Tyler, you mean." 

"Maybe he's been sloppy." 

She nodded, sipped her coffee, raised her eyebrows. 

He studied her face. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I did a little digging of my own yesterday." 

"And?" 

She folded her arms across her chest, looked pleased at having the upper hand. "Tyler Moore is a moderately successful crime novelist." 

"You're kidding." 

"He's not exactly bestseller material, but he's got at least eight novels in print. Paperbacks. Pulp fiction." 

"He'd have to do a lot of research for those," Mulder said thoughtfully.

"Mmm-hmm," she agreed. 

"This could get interesting, Scully." 

"Just as long as it doesn't get too interesting," she said, setting her empty mug down on the counter. "Thanks for the coffee." 

"Yeah," he said softly, suddenly on unsure footing once again. "I'll call you when I get back." 

She smiled at him, and then she was gone. 

*

He bought a paperback in the airport, lost himself for a little while in one of Tyler Moore's mediocre page-turners. After a while, he closed the book on his lap, looked out the window at the clouds. 

He had, for a long time, held the sky as an object of wonder, of reverence. Countless mysteries were concealed among the stars, mysteries that shone and twinkled and beckoned.

It was funny, he thought, for a man who had spent so much of his life with his head in the clouds to be surprised and dismayed when his feet finally left earth. It seemed foolish, now. He had spent years speaking with abductees, listening to their stories. They had all known fear. He had brushed it off, sought to mirror their experiences with his own. More than anything, he'd wanted to know. Wanted to _understand._

He'd lain awake and screaming through his own vivisection. Whatever there was left to understand after that, he wasn't sure he was interested in finding out.

"That's a good book," the woman sitting on the aisle seat said, gesturing to the paperback in his hands. Her voice held a faint Texas twang.

"Oh," he started, looked down. "Yeah, it's not bad." 

"The author is from Austin, did you know that?" she asked. 

"No," he said. "I had no idea." 

*

It was early afternoon when the plane set down in Austin, and he stepped outside into blinding, blazing heat. Texas, hot and miserable, exactly the way he remembered it.

He had, he decided, never had a good experience in Texas, and would probably be best served avoiding the state entirely in the future. 

He drove to the police station first, stepped gratefully into air conditioning. He waved his badge and got himself introduced to Detective West, who was heading the parking garage investigation. 

West was tanned, blonde, and wore cowboy boots with his police uniform. He had an easy smile and a deep Texas drawl, and Mulder found himself wondering how much of it was real, and how much just an act to throw the federal agent off guard. He found himself thinking of the sheriff in Chaney, Texas, who had disguised vampirism with charm. 

There was nothing suspicious about West's teeth, and Mulder found himself poring over crime scene photographs, female forms slumped ungracefully on concrete. 

"There's been three so far," West said, his handsome features drawn into furrowed concern. "There's no link that we can see between the victims. It's always women, always parking garages, but he never hits the same building twice." 

"Security cameras?" Mulder asked. 

He shook his head. "Disabled. He's a planner." 

Mulder looked back down at the photographs, read the blank faces of the dead. 

"It's impersonal," he murmured. 

"What's that?" 

"Was there a forensic analysis? Blood splatter?" 

"They estimate he was standing approximately five feet away when he pulled the trigger in all three cases." 

"He wants to be closer, but he knows he can't," Mulder said, touching the first photograph with the tip of his finger. "He wants to touch them." 

"Dare I ask how in the hell you could possibly know that?" 

"This isn't a crime of passion. He's not doing anything spontaneously. He's stalking these women. Obsessing over them. Then he's pulling the trigger because he doesn't want us to know how badly he wants them." 

"What kind of a sick sonofabitch do you think we have here?" 

"The kind that doesn't want you to know how sick he really is," Mulder said. "Tell me what you know about Tyler Moore." 

West laughed. "The writer?" His smile faded as he realized that Mulder was not laughing along. "He's something of a local celebrity. Nice guy. Won the Big Daddy Burger Challenge three years in a row, kids cheering him on." 

"A pillar of the community," Mulder said.

"You're not really implying that he--" 

He decided to go for broke. "We have reason to believe he may be involved." 

"Evidence?" 

Mulder smiled, turned his empty palms up. "Nothing that would hold up in court." 

"That opinion isn't going to go over well here," West cautioned. "Half the guys on the force have autographed copies of his book." 

He looked back down at the photograph. "You should have been able to determine the height of the shooter from the blood splatter analysis." 

"He's tall," West conceded. "There was a downward trajectory to the shot." 

Mulder looked at him across the table, did not speak.

"There are a lot of tall men in the world," West said. He sighed, gathered the photographs back into the file. "We'll look into it." 

He had already made up his mind to look into it himself.

*

Tyler Moore opened the door, looking almost exactly like the photo on the back of his paperback. He was a large man, broad of shoulder, with close cut blonde hair and a wide face, pink and smooth like a baby. 

"Hi," he said. "Can I help you?"

"Fox Mulder, FBI," Mulder held up his badge.

The big man looked surprised, took a step back from the door. "FBI? Is something wrong?" His voice was soft. 

"I'm actually in town looking into a serial murder case," Mulder said as he stepped into the house. The air conditioner was running full-blast and was a welcome relief on his overheated skin. "You might have heard something about it? Three women shot to death in parking garages throughout the Austin area." 

"I--" Tyler looked taken aback. "I have. It's been on the news. Terrible thing." 

"Yeah," Mulder said, taking off his sunglasses and pausing to inspect the knick-knacks on the mantel. There were photos of smiling children. "These your kids?"

"My-- yes. Angela is five and Bradley is seven." 

"Cute," Mulder said, turning back around.

"I'm sorry, I just-- I'm not really understanding. You want to talk to me about this shooting?" Tyler smoothed at a crease in his khakis. 

Mulder feigned surprise, chuckled. "About the shooting? No! No. I'm just-- I was in town, and-- this is kind of embarrassing, but my wife is a huge fan, and--" 

"Oh," Tyler said. "Oh. So you want an autograph or something?" 

"Would you mind?" he asked, holding up the paperback he'd bought at the airport. He let his eyes roam around the living room. 

A news program was running on mute, a newscaster in a blue pantsuit standing on the beach, her back to the water as she spoke into the camera. 

"Ordinarily," Tyler said, moving past him towards the immaculate kitchen. "I'd find this weird. But you caught me in a good mood." 

"My wife will be thrilled." 

"I like making people happy." He flipped open the paperback, scrawled his name in thick black marker across the inside cover. 

Mulder's attention wandered to the neat computer desk in the corner. The screen was on, cursor blinking. He scrolled up through lines and lines of text. "New book?"

Tyler slammed the paperback shut, approached at a pace that defied his size. He hit the power button on the monitor. 

"That's private," he snapped. He folded his arms, stood in front of the computer like a bouncer in a rowdy bar. 

"I didn't mean to intrude," Mulder said.

His face softened. "I don't like anyone to see what I'm working on before my editor gets his hands on it. It'd ruin the magic if the world knew what a terrible speller I really am."

Mulder gave a congenial laugh. "I guess we all have our secrets." 

He paused, looked at the television. The camera had cut away from the woman to a photo of two smiling men. Below the photo, a caption announced TWO MISSING IN OIL RIG DISASTER. 

"I'm sorry," he said, turning his attention back to Tyler. "Do you mind turning that up?" 

The big man stared at him for a moment, before shrugging and picking up the remote. 

"We've got continuous coverage of the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. For those of you just tuning in, the crew of the Galpex-Orpheus is reporting an explosion on board. Three men are missing."

"It's been on all day," Tyler said. "Part of the rig blew some time last night." 

Maybe, Mulder thought, it was just because Texas and oil held different connotations for him than others, but something about the story nagged at him. 

"Dangerous job," Tyler said. 

"Very." 

They regarded each other for a moment. 

"Thanks for the autograph. My wife's gonna love it." 

"Any time," Tyler said, grinning. He opened the front door, leading Mulder back out into the blazing sunlight. "You know, I was married for a few years." 

"You don't say." 

"My wife would have lost her mind if I ever went out without my wedding ring." 

Mulder looked down at his hand, back up at Tyler. The other man's face had gone hard. 

"You caught me," Mulder said. "The autograph's for me. I'm the fan." 

"You don't say."

"Good luck with your book." He turned and moved quickly down the driveway towards his rental car, sweat already beading on his forehead from the heat. He could feel Tyler's eyes boring into him as he retreated. 

*

He caught the tail end of an Elvis tune in his rental car on the way back to the airport, hummed along as the air conditioner struggled to overcome the heat. 

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as the song ended, replaced by the drone of a radio newscaster. He thought he might be able to catch an evening flight, be home and nestled into his couch before midnight. 

"Breaking news on the Galpex-Orpheus explosion. Police have confirmed that the body discovered on the beach in Port Aransas, Texas, is one of the missing men. Reports from the scene state that the man was severely burned. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim's family, as well as the families of the two workers still listed as missing--"

Mulder shut off the radio, pulled his rental car to the side of the road. A semi truck screamed past on his left. 

He consulted a map. Port Aransas was roughly four hours south of Austin. It would not be the first time he had driven through the desert in search of aliens, and he thought it would probably not be the last. 

He supposed he wouldn't be sleeping on his own couch tonight after all.

*

His badge got him through the police tape and onto the beach, steps away from the lapping, blue-green Gulf. Gawkers clustered around, taking pictures, talking in excited voices. 

"It was awful," a woman said to her friend, her voice loud and shaky. "He was all burnt away." 

Mulder squinted past the excitement on the beach, looked out at the horizon. He thought about all of the men still out there, and what might be out there with them. 

He hailed the nearest police officer. "Where was the body taken?"

"Downtown. The medical examiner is with him now." 

After obtaining directions to the morgue, Mulder made his way through the crowd, back to his rental car. He sat for a moment, looked at his phone. 

This was an X File. He was almost sure of it. Once he was able to talk to the medical examiner and view the body, he'd be positive. 

He dialed the basement office, half hoping Scully would pick up. 

"This is Agent Doggett." 

"Agent Doggett," he said. "It's Mulder." 

There was a long pause. "Mulder. What can I do for you?"

"I'm in Port Aransas, Texas. Have you seen the news about the oil rig explosion?"

"Terrible thing," Doggett said.

"There's something more going on here. I'm on my way to view the body. You're going to want to look into this one." 

"Hold on," Doggett said, and he could hear the rustle of paper on the other end of the line. "You're not making sense. Look into what?" 

"There was no explosion. This is a cover up. I'm almost certain of it, and I'll know for sure once I see the body." 

"A cover up for what?" 

"Black oil." 

"Black oil," Doggett repeated. He sounded dubious.

"You'll want to look at the files," Mulder said. "There's a history here. A salvage ship called the Piper Maru--" 

"And a rock from outer space and a cave in Texas," Doggett said. "I read the files, Mulder." 

Taken aback, he found himself with nothing to say.

"Look, if it seems like there's something to investigate, I'll look into it," Doggett said. His voice was testy.

"I'll have the ME fax over those reports," Mulder said finally. He hung up before Doggett could respond. 

*

Later that night he lay under a scratchy blanket in a Port Aransas motel room, watching a muted television. There were bodies on his mind, a stabbed and mutilated woman in East Hampton, a gunshot woman with a bloodstain blooming on a white linen jacket in Austin, a man scorched by radiation in Port Aransas. Evils committed by man and alien alike. 

His hand roamed to his chest, searched for the ridge of scar tissue, found only smooth flesh. The last reminder of his ordeal had flaked away. 

He shut his eyes and thought of being laid open by a whirling saw, of the silent way they'd worked on him. He had not suffered with quiet dignity; he had screamed, screamed and begged and shouted Scully's name over and over again until he was hoarse. 

He did not want to remember it. But he was afraid to forget. 

His eyes snapped open as his cell phone began to ring. He picked it up, held it to his ear. 

"Mulder." 

"Still in Texas?" Scully asked him. 

He smiled at the sound of her voice, shut his eyes again. "I had to look into something. Missed my flight. I'm heading back tomorrow." 

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

"Do I ever?"

He could feel her smiling in the silence. 

"Oh," he said, after a moment. "I got you an autograph." 

"Dare I even ask?"

"Yeah, some novelist. Tyler Moore. He wrote a few crime novels, but, Scully, I think he's poised to hit it big. This might be worth something someday." 

"Good, it can fund my retirement," she said dryly. "I take it he's exactly as Charlie feared?" 

"I think there's a good chance," Mulder said. 

"It might be a good idea to reach out to these two other friends he spoke about, Zoe and Joey. We haven't heard anything from either of them. They might be willing to come forward. Corroborate his story." 

"Yeah," Mulder said, his thoughts turning to Mac Gerber. He was certain that Gerber had tracked him down by now. He would find out that Mulder had been partnered to Dana Scully, would make the connection to Charlie. 

He was hedging his bets on Gerber being as much of an egomaniac as he appeared to be. Killing Charlie in retaliation would not be his style. He would, as they all seemed to do, want a worthy opponent. If the game was a battle of wits, he would know better than to tip his hand so early. 

But was he _sure?_ He had exposed himself, had exposed Charlie, had exposed Scully. 

It had been a lifetime since he'd done this kind of work. He felt sluggish, rusty, uncertain. He thought again of whirling saws and screams. 

"Mulder?" her voice was soft, sleepy in his ear. 

"Hmm," he said, turning on his side and flicking off the television. "You keep your gun nearby at night, right?" 

"On my nightstand," she said. "Why?" 

"Just in case." 

*

Zoe abhorred crowds. People pressed in on all sides, overdressed, overgroomed, stinking to high heaven of overpriced cologne and sweat. 

She leaned against the bar, pushed her breasts out suggestively, a lithe figure in a tight black dress. Men leered. She took her drink, gin martini extra dry, and turned around, meeting the hungry stares head on. 

"What's your name?" a pair of eyes, looking her up and down. 

"Clara," she said without hesitating, taking a slow slip of her drink, maintaining eye contact. He grinned back at her, white teeth gleaming in the dim light. 

She continued in that way for an hour, slithering serpentine through crowds, feeling eyes on her, lustful gazes heating her skin. 

"Am I dead?" 

She looked up sharply at the man to her left. "Excuse me?" 

He smiled down at her, young and handsome and deeply tanned from the California sunshine. "Am I dead? Because you look like an angel." He was too earnest to be smooth, too lecherous to be anything but offensive. There was beer on his breath. 

She smiled, took a sip of her drink, looked up at him demurely through her lashes. 

"I'm Joe," he said, reaching out to touch her hair.

"I'm yours," she told him. 

He followed her into the night. 

She kissed him against the wall, her hands flat against wet brick, his hands roaming everywhere on her body. Her dress left little to the imagination. 

"Where have you been all my life?" he asked, breathless.

She smiled, reached into her purse. He had begun to pant. 

"Waiting for the right moment," she whispered.

He was still grinning stupidly against her skin when she lifted the knife. 

*

Mulder drove from the airport straight to the Hoover building, spent an hour researching Tyler Moore at an unoccupied desk in the bullpen. 

Two serial killers. Mac and Tyler. Tyler and Mac. One liked to do his dirty work up close and personal, the other kept his distance. 

"Hey, Mulder." 

He glanced up, saw one of the other agents that had been handling the Blake wiretap. Jimenez or Johnson or something with a J, he had never bothered to learn the man's name. It had all felt terribly temporary.

"You hear about Blake?" 

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "No, what?"

"Looks like we're off the hook for wiretapping. They've got him on a murder charge." 

"You're kidding," he said. 

"Yeah, that old lady out on Long Island? You hear about that?" 

"I might have heard something," he said.

"They're saying he killed her to shut her up. She was hurting his business." 

Mulder leaned back in his chair, rubbed his hand along his chin. He had not shaved that morning, and his stubble rasped against his palm. 

An egomaniac like Gerber would not want someone else to get credit for his crime. But, given the opportunity to see an enemy twist in the wind, he would almost surely take it. 

He thought about it for a moment, thought about Gerber and those cold, watchful eyes. He'd let Blake dangle for a few days, he thought. Then new evidence would suddenly surface linking the Sullivan murder to others. It would become a serial case, a news sensation. Blake would be cleared of murder but would return home a free man, but with his image fatally tarnished. His neighbors would forever look at him with suspicion.

It was, he thought, expertly planned. 

He could not find it in himself to be impressed.

He felt slow, off his game, a step behind. There had been a time, years ago, before Scully, before the X Files, when he might have relished the opportunity to go toe to toe with a man like Gerber. To look evil in the eye without flinching. Now he just felt cold, and tired, and sick at the waste of life, the people who had died for no reason other than to prove a point. 

"Mulder." Scully's voice this time. 

He lifted his head, turned to look at her. She stood in the entrance to the bullpen, watching him with those perpetually concerned blue eyes. He wanted to stand up, smooth that furrow between her brows. 

Instead he leaned back in his chair and offered her a half smile. 

"When did you get back?" she asked him. 

"This afternoon." He tossed her the paperback. 

She opened it, looked down at the scrawled autograph. "I'm touched." 

"He's killed three people, Scully, and he's going to kill more." 

She nodded without looking up at him, and he knew she had not come upstairs to discuss Charlie's case. "You called Agent Doggett about that thing in Port Aransas. The oil rig explosion." 

"Oh," he said. 

"You really think there's something there?" 

"I'm sure of it." 

"Because Agent Doggett--"

"Don't even tell me he doesn't think it's worth pursuing," he said, sitting up, suddenly angry. 

"Galpex Petroleum is being very forthcoming about the incident, Mulder. It was a blowout. There were witnesses." 

"I saw the body," he said, leaning forward, looking at her earnestly. Come on Scully, he thought. We've been here before. 

She met his gaze, but he did not see her wavering. Instead, she just looked tired, tired and sad. 

He was aware that there were eyes on him, that the other agents in the room were surreptitiously watching their conversation play out. He saw smirks and wondered when she had become as much of an object of curiosity as he was, was it her pregnancy or had it happened sooner? Had he been oblivious to the changing tide? In his eyes, she had always commanded nothing less than complete respect; she had always been the credible one. 

She saw him noticing the eyes on her and sighed. "We'll look into it, Mulder." Her voice was soft. "I can't make any promises." 

*

He had an early morning flight booked, but drove to the marina in the faint pink light of approaching dawn. 

Charlie was awake, sitting on the deck of his boat, craning his head towards the ever-lightening sky. He looked sober.

"By yourself today?" he called, looking pointedly behind Mulder at the empty dock. 

Mulder found that the urge to toss Scully's brother over the side of the boat and into the harbor had not abated. 

"I'm going to make this quick," he said, glancing at his watch. "I have another issue that needs my attention." 

"What issue might that be?" 

"Something important," Mulder scowled. "Something that's being ignored." 

"Aliens?" Charlie asked merrily. 

"Can you just cut the crap?" His patience felt like a rope fraying against the dock. 

Charlie's smile faded. "Someone's irritable this morning." 

"I went to see your friends." 

"Which friends?" 

"Gerber. Moore." 

"How's Mack the Knife doing these days?" 

"He's done all right for himself." Mulder hesitated. "He's also as dangerous as you suspected." 

Charlie nodded slowly, shut his eyes. "And Tyler?" 

"He's got secrets." 

"So they've killed people. For real. Murdered." 

"Gerber targeted his most vocal supporter," Mulder said. "It's brilliant, really." 

"He's always burned a little bit brighter than the rest of us." 

Mulder did not like the reverent tone that had crept into Charlie's voice. It reminded him a little too much of the graveside gathering, all of those blank rapturous faces. "Yeah, well, I want to know everything about him." 

"Arrest him and ask him yourself." 

"There isn't a charge on earth that would stick to him right now. You know that." 

Charlie shrugged, smiled a lazy smile. "I don't know much these days beyond the number of cans floating around in my cooler. That number has dwindled, so I know I have to start thinking about a walk down the block to the store." 

Mulder let out an impatient hiss of air. "You're treating this like a game." 

"It is a game," Charlie said. "It's Mac's game. We're just the pieces on the board." He shook his head, suddenly serious. "I hope to hell he hasn't figured out who you are and where you came from." 

"On the contrary, I'm counting on it." 

Charlie's eyes widened. "No. No. He'll figure out what I told you. He's smart, Mulder, you've seen that. He'll know that I--" 

"I want him to know," Mulder said. "If he's as smart as you say he is, I suspect he'd have tracked me down within an hour of our conversation." 

He glanced wildly around, running a hand through mussed hair. "Jesus, Mulder. He could--" 

"He won't. Not yet." 

"How can you--" 

"It's my job to be smarter than him." It sounded good, Mulder thought. He just hoped he was truly up to the task. 

"Well that's comforting," Charlie snapped. "Jesus. Keep him off my boat, okay? For once in my life I'd like to wake up to some good news." 

"Consider postponing that trip to the grocery store," Mulder said. "You might want to keep a clear head."

Charlie gave him a dubious look. 

"And try to jog your memory about your dear friend Mac. I want to know everything you know. How may girls he dated, what classes he took, the cigarettes he smoked, the name of his favorite college pot dealer. Everything." 

"Yeah," he said, his voice shaking. "Yeah, okay." 

"I've got to go," Mulder said as the sun crested over the horizon. "There's an oil rig calling my name." 

"Yeah, those oil rigs," Charlie said, his voice bewildered as Mulder turned to head back towards the car. "They sure tend to do that."


	7. Chapter 7

*

A week in quarantine. 

He had found himself in quarantine situations more often than the average FBI agent over the years, thanks to his peculiar interests and knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

It had been difficult under the best circumstances for someone with his reserves of nervous energy, difficult to stay still and confined when there were questions that needed asking, truths that needed proving, facts that were being covered up. 

But if it had been difficult then, it was unbearable now. He'd spent three months in a coffin. Now a week, wasted with a careless indifference. He thought it might not be that much longer before his time truly ran out, when he'd regret all of those days and weeks and months that he'd spent not living. 

A week in an observation room with John Doggett. 

He was, admittedly, not that bad. Though Mulder thought he had a snowball's chance in hell of enjoying this forced proximity with the man. It had only been a day and a half, and he already felt like he was losing his mind. He paced. He stood up and sat down. He drummed his fingers against an instrument tray until Doggett snatched it away in irritation. 

"I think we're in deep shit," Doggett had said. 

Mulder had to agree.

He had been the one to demand a quarantine on the oil rig, but that had been when others were involved. Unknown quantities. He knew damn well that neither he nor Doggett were infected. 

At least Doggett had seen it, though. He'd seen it for himself. Now he knew.

"Mulder." 

"What?" Mulder glanced over, irritated, certain he was about to be chastised again for fidgeting. He tried to remind himself that he didn't hate Doggett, that he wasn't the enemy, that he probably would not have minded him at all had he not been the one to stand by Scully's side for all of those months. Those months that had slowly turned her into a stranger. All of those lost months. 

Doggett raised his eyebrows, tilted his head towards the door. 

Skinner was visible behind the glass partition, his mouth and nose hidden by a mask. Even so, Mulder got the sense that he was scowling. 

"Sir," he said, standing up and moving towards the door. 

Skinner did not speak, his jaw muscles twitching. Mulder found himself oddly relieved that he could not see the other man's expression. 

"I brought you some reading material," Skinner said finally, his voice tight. 

Mulder glanced uneasily back at Doggett, who shut his eyes and let his head roll back in defeat. 

Yeah, they were in deep shit. No doubt about it. 

"What--" 

"Scully wanted to make sure that you got it. She managed to find time to tell me that in between the autopsy and the tests she's been running." Skinner looked past Mulder at Doggett. Mulder felt heartened to see that he seemed equally peeved at both of them. 

"Sir--" 

"She was all set to fly down here herself to meet you. Fortunately I was able to convince her that would be a very bad idea." 

Doggett sighed and stood up. "That oil rig--" 

"I don't want to hear it," Skinner said. He held up a battered marble notebook. "I'll give this to the doctor for you." 

When the doctor, in his ubiquitous white hazmat suit, came into the room a half hour later to run tests, he brought the notebook with him. Mulder snatched it from his hands and began flipping through the pages while his blood pressure was being measured. 

"What is that?" Doggett asked, leaning in for a better look.

Mulder did not answer, but did not attempt to pull the book away, either. The pages were filled with hastily scribbled passages, some legible, some not. A handful of yellowed photographs had been pressed between the cover and the last page and he shuffled through them. 

Charlie and Mac Gerber, standing on a balcony, cigarettes in hand. They wore acid washed jeans and black sweaters, hair whipped by the wind. Charlie was holding a beer in his other hand, smiling at the camera. Mac's lips did not hold a hint of a smile but his image was magnetic, drawing the eye. He looked like a rock star. 

Mac Gerber and a girl, a tall blonde with teased hair and bright lipstick. She grinned up at him adoringly, he regarded her with a practiced indifference. 

Charlie and Tyler, making goofy faces at the camera.

Charlie and a heavyset girl with black hair, both giving the finger to the camera. 

"Zoe," Mulder murmured. 

The original picture of the five friends that Charlie had shown them. All of them wore casual smiles, arms slung companionably around each other. Mulder studied the youthful faces, looked for any sign that darkness lurked within. 

If there were clues in their eyes, he could not decipher them. 

The last picture made him suck in a sharp breath of air. It was a classic family photo, smiling faces around a table, a golden brown turkey resplendent in the middle. He recognized Maggie Scully immediately, her face unlined and beaming, her hair long and dark. Bill sat next to her in Navy whites, proud and tall, his chin jutting out ever so slightly. Next to him slouched Charlie, his hair too long, unsmiling, bored. At the head of the table sat Captain Scully, who Mulder had only ever seen in pictures, the proud patriarch. On the other side of the table, across from Charlie, was the dark haired figure of Mac Gerber. He had a half-smile on his face, the kind that didn't show his teeth, and his arm was slung casually across the back of the chair next to him. 

And in that chair, grinning at the camera, was Dana Scully. 

He let the air hiss out between his teeth and sat down on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. Her hair was almost as long as it had been when he'd first met her, her cheeks full and rosy with happiness. Her outfit was atrocious-- he supposed there were very few people alive who were proud of all of the combinations they'd chosen in the 80s-- but the sight of her smile still stopped his heart. 

Melissa was next to her on the other side. The Scully family in total. 

"Family pictures?" Doggett asked, taking the photo from his hand. 

Mulder had an irrational urge to snatch it back, to keep the image of a younger, happier Scully all to himself. Instead, he nodded. "Something I'm looking into."

Doggett let out a low whistle. "Is that Maxwell Gerber?"

Mulder looked at him with sudden interest. "You know him?" 

"When I was with the NYPD I crossed paths with him a few times. He had something of a wild phase before he settled in to become Mr. Millionaire Philanthropist." Doggett handed Mulder back the photograph, sat down in the opposite chair. 

"Wild how?"

"Got into a little bit of trouble in some of the shadier Manhattan joints. He liked to smack strippers around. No charges were ever pressed." 

Unsurprised, Mulder looked back down at the picture. Scully, smiling. Gerber's arm around her. She had not mentioned that she'd met him. How well had they known each other?

"Hey, Mulder." 

He glanced up. Doggett was watching him with a serious expression. 

"Yeah?" 

"You got something on this guy Gerber?" 

"I might," he said. "I might." 

"Good," Doggett said. "Guy always gave me the creeps." 

*

"We're in deep shit," Doggett said as the flight attendant began her safety routine. "No doubt about it." 

Mulder wondered if Doggett had ever been in trouble before. This kind of trouble. Career-ending trouble. The kind of trouble that came about when you started turning in reports naming aliens as the culprit in your investigations. 

He thought not. 

And he thought, maybe, that was a point in Doggett's favor. Because his own name was certainly mud in the bureau now. Any credibility he'd had from his profiling days had been stretched, tattered, eroded through the years and finally left behind in the dirt when his not-quite-dead corpse had been dug up. 

He had been ready to walk away. He'd lain in a motel room bed with his arm around Scully, had questioned out loud the toll their jobs had exacted from them. His life's work, his passion, his purpose-- he had been ready to walk away from it all that meant he and Scully could find some semblance of peace. Together. 

Hell, he thought. No wonder he had died. He had cast himself in the role of the one-day-away-from-retirement cop in the action movie. One last case. One last UFO to track down. One last trip to the forest. One final trip without his pretty partner to watch his back, and he hadn't come home. Was anyone really surprised?

Could he walk away now? Could he? 

He wasn't sure. He'd been tortured, been maimed, had spent three months rotting in a coffin, had suffered through every possible indignity a human being could be made to suffer. But it had not been an accident, or pure happenstance. It had been _done_ to him. It was _still_ being done to others, right under their noses. Could he, in all good conscience, walk away while that was happening?

Doggett was a relaxed flier, leaning back in his seat, snoring a little. It was a contrast to Scully, who frequently white-knuckled takeoffs and landings. 

Doggett. 

The man was rigid, unyielding in a way that Scully had never been. But he had integrity. He was credible. Those qualities were hard to come by in their line of work. 

Mulder weighed credibility against passion, integrity against purpose. It was possible, he conceded, that Doggett was worth more than he was in the basement office simply because people did not start snickering the second he opened his mouth. 

The other man was right, Mulder knew. They were in deep shit. But maybe one of them could still come out of this relatively clean. 

*

Scully met them at the airport. 

He saw her right away, standing near the back, away from the crowd. Her face broke in a relieved smile and he could not help but be jealous that it was not only for him. 

"Kersh wants to see you both tomorrow morning," she said, stowing the smile away, all business. "First thing." 

Doggett caught Mulder's eye, nodded. 

Deep shit, Mulder thought. No doubt about it. 

"I'm gonna catch a cab," Doggett said.

Scully looked surprised. "I can drop you off."

"No," he said, glancing back in Mulder's direction.

Mulder had a brief, wondering moment to consider that this whole mess may have been equally awkward for Doggett.

"It's out of your way," Doggett said. "You go on. I'll see you tomorrow." 

He walked off through the crowd, bag slung over his shoulder.

"Kersh can't be happy," Mulder said, watching the receding form.

Scully sighed. He could feel her, trying to find a way to speak delicately. "No," she said at last. "That's putting it mildly." 

"I had to go," he said.

"I know." 

He looked over at her, took in her tired worried face. _Tell the kid I went down swinging,_ he'd told her over the radio from the oil rig. She hadn't laughed. 

"I'm not calling a cab."

This time she did laugh, a little chuff that seemed to drain the tension from her shoulders. She put her hand on his arm, tugged gently. "Come on." 

*

"Did you eat?" she asked him in the car, and he shook his head. 

They picked up a pizza and drove back to his apartment in the gathering twilight, street lights beginning to wink on all around. He carried the box as they rode the elevator, tried to think back on all of the other nights they'd spent just like this.

Charlie was sitting on the floor outside his apartment door, head in his hands. There was a small package next to him. 

Mulder entertained a brief thought of turning around, herding Scully back into the elevator and taking the pizza to her apartment instead. Charlie lifted his head, and the chance was lost.

"Your apartment complex has terrible security," he said. "I mean, really. Anyone can just walk right in here." 

"How do you know where I live?" 

"You're FBI, not CIA," Charlie rolled his eyes.

"This isn't the best time," Mulder said, fumbling with his key as Charlie got to his feet. "I've had a rough week."

"You've been MIA," he said, sniffing the air. "Is that pizza?"

He sighed and held open the door. "You're overdoing the acronyms." 

They ate pizza off of paper plates on Mulder's coffee table, drank the last three cans of V-8 from the back of his fridge after he failed to turn up any soda.

"You got my book," Charlie said.

"You got a package," Mulder deflected. He wasn't ready to talk about that book just yet, that book that held the picture of Scully grinning like a homecoming queen next to Gerber.

Charlie handed it over without speaking. 

Scully, as always, was prepared with latex gloves. He wondered if she carried them to the grocery store, to the gym, on any of her myriad other errands. One never knew, he supposed.

"Happy hunting," she read, gingerly lifting a framed needlework of a smiling moose from the box.

"Zoe," Charlie said. "There's no mistaking her sense of humor." 

Mulder looked at the news clipping. "Los Angeles. A stabbing." 

Charlie frowned. "Los Angeles? That's not... Zoe doesn't live in Los Angeles." 

"Where does she live?" 

"Montana." He shook his head. "Joey lives in L.A. But--" 

"So is it Zoe or is it Joey?" Mulder asked, impatient. 

"That," he said, pointing to the needlework. "Is almost certainly Zoe." 

"Why would she travel all the way to Los Angeles to kill someone?" Scully asked.

"Don't shit where you eat?" Mulder offered.

She frowned at him. 

"The victim's name was Joe," Charlie said, scanning the article. He sat back on the couch, rubbed his chin. "Holy shit. I think she's sending him a message." 

"What kind of message?"

"The 'you rejected me and now I'm going to kill you' kind of message," Charlie said. "Jesus. I'll bet that's exactly what she's doing. She went down to L.A. to be closer to him, to get under his skin." 

"This is good," Mulder said, leaning forward.

Charlie looked at him askance. "Good how?"

"If she's making it personal, she's invested. This isn't just an exercise to her."

"That just makes her sound more dangerous." 

"She's going to make a mistake," Mulder said, suddenly certain of it. "She's going to make a mistake and we'll be ready when she does." 

"What if she decides her next mistake should be here?" 

"Did you do anything to piss her off?" 

"You mean aside from giving her name to the FBI?" 

Mulder grinned. "Aside from that." 

Charlie stood up, dropped a grease-stained napkin on the coffee table. "I think you're nuts." 

"I want to pay your friend Joey a visit." 

"Why?" 

"Because if Zoe has picked up the hunt, that only leaves two. Joey... and you." He leaned back against the couch cushions. "If he's feeling hunted, I think he might welcome an ally at this juncture." 

"Yeah," Charlie said, sounding anything but convinced. "Sure." 

A cell phone began to trill. Both Mulder and Scully checked their pockets. 

"Agent Doggett," she said as she flipped her phone open. "What's wrong?" 

Mulder looked away, discomfited to see that Charlie was watching him with an oddly knowing expression. He stood up, looked out the window at the darkened street as Scully spoke softly into the phone behind him. A light drizzle had begun to fall. 

"Mulder," she said, and something in her voice made his blood run cold. 

He turned around, saw that she looked stricken. "What?" he asked, keeping his voice steady. 

"Agent Doggett just got off the phone with Skinner," she said. "They... the oil rig. It's not good news." 

He smiled a little bit. "Is that all?" 

"I don't think you understand," she said, her voice thick. "The meeting that Kersh has scheduled tomorrow-- they're talking about shutting us down." 

"They've been talking about shutting us down for years," he said. 

"Mulder--" 

"I expected this," he said quietly. He probed around for anger and came up empty. "I had a lot of time to think about it in quarantine." 

"Quarantine?" Charlie took an alarmed step back. "You're not contagious, are you?" 

"They don't let you out of quarantine if you're contagious," Mulder said. "That's the whole point of quarantine." 

"Yeah, okay, I'm going home," Charlie said, moving towards the door. "Thanks for the pizza."

"Charlie," Scully said.

He looked up at her, his gaze faltering. For all of his wisecracking and false bravado, Mulder noted that he was unable to look his sister in the eye. 

"Be careful," she said. 

He nodded, hesitated, hand on the door. "You too," he said finally. Then he was gone. 

"I should go too," she said. 

"It's late," Mulder said softly. 

She gave him a tired smile. "And I'm armed." 

"Come here," he said, and pulled her into his arms. He heard the hitch in her breath as she pressed her face into his chest. He kissed the top of her head, breathed in the scent of her shampoo. Something cold in his bones began to thaw as he melted against her. He thought she might be crying. He thought he might be too. 

I missed you, he thought, not for the first time, shutting his eyes and trying to memorize the feeling of her in his arms. Even in death, I missed you. 

"Stay," he murmured, and he felt her nod against him. 

They curled together in his bed, his arm around her, curved against the unfamiliar roundness of her belly. Her breathing was steady and even and he lay awake looking at her in the darkness. He had considered walking away from the X Files that night in Bellefleur, spooned against her the same way, sick with worry over her health and the toll that their continued investment had taken on them. 

Tomorrow, he thought, he _would_ be walking away. Not just from the X Files, but from his entire career. They wouldn't be merciful with him. Not now, not when he was a walking curiosity the FBI would just as soon distance itself from. 

He shut his eyes, thought about the way things were before Bellefleur, before everything went to hell. They had reached the end of their tenure, he thought. They had stopped taking things so damned seriously. They had only just begun taking such _delight_ in each other. He had felt young, giddy, like a teenager caught in a flush of first love. Because it had taken them so long to start touching each other, it had felt surreal, impossible, every time it happened. 

He'd thrown a punch at an auditor, and she hadn't even chastised him over it. They'd _laughed_ about it.

He wondered, for a black moment, if what had happened to him would have happened if they had not crossed that line. If they had not been distracted, if he had not been thinking about walking away. If he had still been paranoid, hyper-aware, if he had--

"I can feel you thinking," she said in the dark, and he jumped a little. 

"Sorry," he said. He stroked the side of her arm with his index finger and she hummed a little bit, settled deeper under the covers. 

"Are you worried about tomorrow?" 

"No," he said, then sighed. "Yes." 

She was silent, and for a moment he thought she had fallen back asleep. Then one of her hands crept up, found his, squeezed. He squeezed back. 

"You knew him," he said. 

"Who?" 

"Mac Gerber." 

"I met him," she said after a pause. "Once. Charlie brought him home for Thanksgiving dinner." 

There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask, a thousand fears he wanted put to rest. He settled for "What was he like?" 

"Polite," she said. "Charming. He spent a good portion of the evening flirting with Melissa." He could hear the sad smile in her voice. "It was a long time ago." 

He could easily imagine the scene, Charlie, forever insecure around his family, leaning on the flawless Gerber as a crutch. Dana and Melissa grinning and trying to catch the eye of the handsome stranger. Gerber would have gone for Melissa because she was older, wilder, but he would not have gone far. Charlie's sisters would have been off limits for the kinds of shenanigans Mac Gerber liked to get up to. 

"He was Charlie's best friend," she said, her voice contemplative. "He talked about him all the time." 

"He seems to have that effect on people," Mulder murmured. 

"Mulder, you have to turn this over to VCU," she said. "After tomorrow--" 

"Shh," he said, shutting his eyes. "I don't want to think about tomorrow. And VCU doesn't want to hear about Maxwell Gerber." 

She didn't speak, and he lay in the darkness looking at the contours of the back of her head, her hair spilled across a pillow. They were not what they once were. Even his arm, draped across her body, felt tentative, intrusive. But she was still holding his hand, had twined his fingers with her own, cradled it near her face.

He let out a little laugh. "Now I can feel _you_ thinking." 

She kissed the tip of his finger, did not offer up an explanation. Her thoughts were her own, she remained a mystery, an enigma. He thought once he might have had her figured out, but time had carved new corridors, locked new doors to passages he had not known existed. 

He didn't know what they were, anymore. But they were still something. 

*

Tyler sat at his computer, phone tucked against his ear, a cold glass of iced tea sweating on the desk to his left. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the words on the screen while his editor chattered away. 

"I've been on a roll," he said, when she'd stopped talking long enough to allow him to edge in. 

"Good," she said. "What have you got for me?" 

He picked up his pencil, took a tentative nibble. "A ripped-from-the-headlines kind of story. Based on that parking garage shooter." He held his breath. 

She let out a laugh so hearty it sounded as though she were positively crowing. "I was hoping you were going to say something like that. Strike while the iron is hot." 

"There are differences, of course," he said. 

"Creative license." He could picture her hand waving in the air. 

"He's a strangler, not a shooter." 

"Creepy," she said. "That's probably a good thing. You don't want any of the victim's families getting too up in arms. People get twitchy about this kind of thing." 

He wondered if she'd be twitchy, too, if she encountered Skip Wayne in a dark parking garage. 

"Send me a few chapters?" 

"You'll have them tonight," he said. He hung up and thought of her pale skinny legs doing a death jitter on damp asphalt. 

His daughter chose that moment to let out a shrill squeal, and he jerked away from the computer, looked over at the television. She stood there, a pint-sized sports fan, baseball cap covering her mop of blonde curls, oversized Astros t-shirt hanging to her knees. She jumped up and down and stared at the screen, where the bases were loaded. 

He smiled. "Angela. Shh. I'm trying to work." 

She looked over at him and gave him an exaggerated thumbs up, grinning. His son, lolling on the floor with his head propped up on pillows, rolled his eyes. 

It was his week with his children, and he'd been expected to drop them off at school. But it was a nice day, and the Astros were playing, so he let them play hooky and hang around the house instead. He liked Angela's enthusiasm, it reminded him of the best parts of his ex wife before things had gone south. And Bradley was taciturn, broad-of-shoulder, a whip smart boy with a stone face that gave nothing away, a mirror image of his father if ever there was one. 

He looked at his children, and felt a surge of love for them so strong it could have bowled him over. He leaned back in his chair, watched them watching the game. 

His palms itched and he picked up the glass of tea, letting the condensation soothe his skin. He looked again at the words on the screen, another victim of his fictional strangler. 

He had come so close. He had wanted so badly to do it, to put his hands around her throat this time and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. So close. Too close. 

All the planning in the word, he mused, and I'm undone by my own base desires. 

He wondered how the others were doing, if Mac had also begun to discover that he _liked_ it, and not just for the thrill of competition. There was a certain moment, when the flicker of recognition passed over his victim's face, that Tyler felt more than just alive. He felt like a god, electricity flowing through his veins, his breath coming fast and even, his brain fine tuned and completely _on._

He'd been excited for this, champing at the bit for years, hoping against hope that their conversation had been more than mere smoke. Mac's ideas could be incendiary, and this one had been burning a hole in his brain since that night. 

He had not, immediately, known what the package meant. He was always being mailed things, contracts to sign, covers to approve, investments to look over. It had spent a day on his dining room table, a neatly stacked pile of junk mail on top. But when he'd opened it, held that delicate bloom of the Gerber daisy in his big fingers, he had begun to tremble. He was suddenly sick with want, with need. He had, only in that moment, realized how many years he'd spent holding his breath.

He'd hoped, then, standing in his airy home with a Gerber daisy in one hand and a folded news clipping in the other, that they would all succeed. That in a year or so they could meet up in some anonymous town, just five old friends reliving the good old days. They'd share photos of their families, stories about their jobs, and eventually they'd tally the score. 

And he'd come out on top. He was sure of it. Mac was brilliant, but Mac was vain. He'd always been concerned with his image, first and foremost. He would want to tie everything up neatly, would waste time and resources applying that gloss. 

Tyler wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. 

Mac wouldn't take the loss easily, he knew that. But there was something about the five of them together, the camaraderie, the nostalgia, that would make it easier. They'd part friends, put the whole exercise behind them, just another part of their shared history. 

He now thought that impossible. 

I didn't know, he thought to himself. I didn't know I'd like it. Five women. Five necks he hadn't touched. He didn't know how much longer he could last. 

The phone rang again and he snatched it up. "Yeah?" 

"Hi big guy," a ghost from the past said, and he stumbled to his feet, kicking his desk chair over behind him with a clatter. 

"Zoe," he said.


	8. Chapter 8

*

In the end, Mulder found himself a little surprised by how easy it was to let go. 

He'd held to his early morning meeting with Kersh, watched the other man try to hide his smile as he relieved him of his gun and badge for the last time. He'd gone downstairs to the basement for one final look, threw some words of advice at Doggett, and then he'd gone.

Elvis has left the building, he'd thought, stepping out into spring sunlight. 

He had expected to feel loss, grief of some kind. His life had been tied to his work, the X Files were a part of him. Instead he felt only a mild relief and a vague nostalgia for a life that was no longer his. 

It was important to him that the X Files be left in the hands of someone with credibility. Doggett was that person. If the truth was to eventually be made known, no one would accept it from a once-dead, paranoid, raving true-believer. 

He had time now, nothing but time. Time to work on whatever had been jarred loose between him and Scully. Time to pursue Gerber. Time to stop chasing aliens for a while. 

He hadn't liked it very much the last time he'd caught up with them, after all. 

He drove home with the windows down, settled into his couch with the marble notebook that Charlie had had delivered to him during his quarantine. The handwritten passages described various youthful misadventures, pranks, run-ins with campus security. 

He looked again at the photo, five friends with their arms around each other. Three of those smiling faces were murderers. One was an unknown quantity. Joey was beaming in the picture, young and good looking. Charlie's stories and notes painted him as weak-willed, the least entrenched in their tight little group. 

It stood to reason that he was every bit as horrified by this turn of events as Charlie. There was the additional complication of Zoe laying down the gauntlet with her choice of victim and location, only a matter of time until she moved in for the real thing. 

Joey might need an ally. 

He almost purchased two tickets to Los Angeles, then caught himself. Scully was in no condition to fly across the country with him, the days of whisking her off on a plane and sharing gruesome case details along the way were long gone. He was on his own. 

For the first time since his eyes had opened on the white hospital walls, he didn't want to be. 

He ordered two tickets anyway. 

*

"Charlie," he called, standing on the sun-bleached dock. He cupped his hands against his mouth and hollered again. 

Charlie emerged from below deck, wiping at bloodshot eyes.

"It's too early for you," he said in a sulky, petulant voice.

"It's three o'clock in the afternoon," Mulder said.

"I just saw you yesterday." 

"Pack a bag," he grinned. "We're going on a trip." 

Charlie gave him a dubious look. "Where?" 

"It's a surprise." 

He opened his mouth to speak and then clasped a hand over his mouth, turned and stumbled towards the railing. He began to retch, chest heaving as he unloaded his previous night's excess into the harbor. 

Mulder watched him until he'd quieted. "When you're done," he said. "Start thinking about Joey Battista. I want to know everything about him." 

Charlie leaned against the railing, looking pale and sweaty. "You probably know more than me." 

"Dr. Joseph Battista," Mulder said. "Beloved family dentist, benefactor to not one but three charity organizations. Father of two." He squinted in the sunlight. "I know what's on paper. I want to know more about the man himself." 

"He's an idiot," Charlie said. "Case closed." 

"That doesn't jive with the kind of company you kept," Mulder said. 

Charlie sighed, his shoulders sagging. "Fine. I'll tell you everything on the way." 

*

Charlie looked no less queasy as they boarded the plane, but he flagged down a flight attendant and ordered a vodka on the rocks before they were even in the air. 

"I hate flying," he said, adjusting the overhead nozzle so that compressed air hissed into his hair. He was sweating, his hair clinging damply to his brow. 

"Joey," Mulder prompted.

"Yeah," Charlie said. "I'm getting to that. I haven't seen him in years. Five years, maybe more. Probably more. We lost touch." 

"What do you remember about him?" 

"I already told you he was an idiot. I mean, he was book smart, we all were, that's how we met. Obviously he managed to get through med school. But he was... less than astute at interpersonal relationships." 

"Imagine that," Mulder said dryly. 

"There's some bad blood there, between him and Zoe. You know that already. She had a thing for him back at school. I don't think he ever noticed. Right before graduation, she made a move and it went badly." 

The stewardess set Charlie's drink in front of him, and he tossed it back without hesitating. 

"That was the beginning of the end for all of us," he said. "She refused to be around him, and he got belligerent with her in turn. I think he was embarrassed and tried to cover it up with cruelty." 

Mulder wondered, now, if Joey had begun to regret that behavior all those years ago. If he looked at the news clippings and started to sweat, thinking of all of the things he'd said, and all of the things he hadn't. 

"I invited them all to my wedding," Charlie was looking down at his lap. "When Michelle and I. Well. Zoe didn't come. I didn't expect her to. Joey was married by then. His wife was already pregnant with their first child. A nice lady. About the furthest from Zoe you could imagine." He laughed, and then suddenly he was crying, ugly, heaving tears. "Mac didn't come either, the bastard. He was supposed to be my best man, and he called me on the goddamn phone the morning of and told me I was making a mistake. That Michelle would suck the life out of me." 

Startled by the outburst, Mulder fumbled for napkins. The flight attendant hurried over. 

"Is he all right?" 

"He's fine," Mulder said quietly. "He got some bad news this morning." 

Her face contorted in sympathy, and then she was gone. 

"You know the worst part," Charlie said, turning to look at Mulder. His eyes were wide, glassy, haunted. "He was right. That son of a bitch was right." 

*

Tyler sat, chewing his pencil.

The baseball game was over, his kids had progressed to chasing each other in circles in the back yard. He could hear their faint whoops of glee through the window. 

He had not touched his keyboard since answering the phone. 

She had been giggly and coy on the line, almost flirtatious; nothing like the girl he remembered. 

"This is fun," she'd said, and he'd been reminded of a time back in school when she'd decided to race Mac to the store, he in his dad's gleaming sports car and she in her battered Volkswagen bug. Tyler had been in her passenger seat and she had looked at him, eyes wide, face split in a grin as she floored the pedal and weaved through traffic. He'd thought he might die that day; they came awfully close when she blew through a red light at the end of their trip, but they'd pulled into the lot a full three seconds before Mac and she had laughed with something approaching manic glee. 

"You shouldn't have called," he'd said, already beginning to sweat. 

"Oh poo," she tittered, sounding like a bored socialite in training. "It's been too long since we all got together. Don't you miss me?" 

"What are you doing in L.A.?"

"Working up to a big finale." 

She had clung to them like a barnacle through their school days, a girl of unremarkable looks and uncommon wit. She had been cutting and sarcastic and mischievous and troublesome and a little bit mean-spirited and they had all loved her a little bit, they had all wished she had been just a little bit prettier. Hadn't they? Hadn't he thought it, once or twice, in those hazy smoky rooms of his youth? 

"You shouldn't have called," he'd told her. "This isn't part of the plan." 

"Plans change," she'd breathed. "Let's meet up." 

They'd all known she had it bad for Joey, every one of them except Joey himself. They'd ignored it, let it go on, thought it was all right as long as she didn't _do_ anything about it. Then she'd gone and done it and Joey had panicked and they'd-- they'd--

They hadn't treated her fairly, in the end, he thought. She and Joey couldn't be in a room together without tangling like a pair of squalling cats and they'd unconsciously taken Joey's side, hadn't they? Not out loud, not definitively. But they'd stopped inviting her out. In those few weeks leading up to and following graduation, five had become four. 

He hadn't invited her to his wedding. He thought that Charlie had, to his, but she hadn't gone. He'd sat at a table with Joey and Joey's new wife and they'd made awkward small talk and traded stories while watching Charlie dance with his bride. 

"It's not supposed to be personal," he'd said. Her breath in his ear had made him uneasy. 

"Everything's personal," she'd laughed. "See you on the flip side, Tyler." 

He rubbed his face, stood up, walked to the window. The sun was just beginning to set. Angela was on the swing set, pumping her legs to coast higher and higher towards the sky. Bradley was tossing a baseball up and down in the air, catching it in his mitt with a satisfying smack. 

No, he thought. There would be no amiable reminiscing when this was over. He suspected, one way or another, they'd be meeting up. Only it wouldn't be as friends.

*

The sun was just sinking towards the horizon when Mulder and Charlie pulled up in front of a well-manicured house in a cheery Los Angeles suburb. All of the houses on the block had a similar look, bright orange tiled roofs and palm trees waving gently in the breeze. 

A friendly neighborhood, Mulder thought. The kind of place you could let your kid roam without worrying about who was going to grab him. 

The front door was open. A tan SUV sat in the driveway, a slightly off-center bumper sticker proclaiming the driver was PROUD to be YOUR Dentist!

"Looks like the doctor is in," Mulder said, moving towards the front door. 

Charlie followed at a slow pace, hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets. 

Mulder stepped up onto the porch, peered through the screen door, felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he took in the scene. A potted plant lay overturned in the foyer, terra cotta pot cracked and spilling dirt on the tile. A precariously balanced pile of suitcases sat against the wall. 

"Hello?" he called into the darkened house. "Dr. Battista?" 

"Go away!" someone hollered from inside. 

Mulder glanced back at Charlie, who looked like he'd be more than happy to oblige. "Is that him?" 

Charlie held up his hands. "How the hell should I know?" 

Missing the familiar weight of his sidearm, Mulder pushed cautiously through the screen door. "Joey? Joey Battista?" 

There was a crash from somewhere within the depths of the house, followed by muffled swearing. A paunchy, bespectacled man with a flushed face and wild eyes came tearing around the corner, wielding a suitcase like a weapon. He paused, stood staring at Mulder. Sweat stains had spread under his arms, soaking his button down shirt and he wiped one meaty forearm across his face, panting. 

"Who the hell are you?" 

"Joey," Charlie said before Mulder could speak, stepping forward. "It's been a long time." 

"Oh," Joey quailed. "Oh Jesus. You. Oh you-- you just get out of here. Stay the hell away from me!" He backed away, bumping into his pile of suitcases and swearing as they tipped over onto the floor. 

"Relax," Mulder said. "We just want to talk to you." 

"I have nothing to say," Joey snapped. "Go." 

"Joey, come on," Charlie said. "You were at my wedding. You're one of my oldest friends--" 

"Tyler was at my wedding too," Joey said, hoisting a suitcase off the floor and hurrying for the door. 

"You haven't gotten a package from me," Charlie spoke slowly, calmly. 

Joey paused, turned around. "Will I?"

"Of course not." 

"You can talk," he said finally. "While I load the car." 

"Where are you going?" Mulder asked, following Charlie and Joey back out into the fading sunshine. 

Joey heaved the suitcase into the back of his SUV. "Far away from here." 

"Is it because of Zoe?" Charlie asked.

Joey whirled to face him, perspiration beading on his forehead. "What the hell kind of question is that? Have you been following the news? Six men. Six! All named Joseph. I can read that message loud and clear." 

"This isn't Mac's plan," Charlie said softly. "He's going to be upset." 

Charlie's tone of voice was not lost on Mulder. He gave the other man an appraising look.

"Mac has always been a little bit fucked in the head, don't you think?" Joey let out a hysterical little bark of laughter. "I have no intention of killing anyone. If Zoe doesn't catch up to me, it's only a matter of time before Mac decides I'm a loose end and that he ought to make an example out of me." 

"What about your wife?" Mulder asked, looking around. "Clara, right? And your daughters?" 

Joey blinked twice, looked from Charlie to Mulder and back again. "Who the hell is this guy?" 

"He's FBI." 

"Former," Mulder clarified.

"You got the FBI involved?" Joey plunged his hands into his thinning hair, yanked on it. "Oh my god." 

"Just so we're clear," Mulder said. "You believe this to be a serious threat. Not a joke. Not a prank?" 

"Mac doesn't make jokes," Joey said. "He takes himself very, very seriously. Trust me, he's already planned out how this one is going to end. And there's no one left standing but him." He hoisted another suitcase, threw it in the car. "Tyler and Zoe are fools if they think this will turn out to be some kind of friendly competition." 

He turned back towards the house, then seemed to sag like a sailboat on a still day. He buried his face in his hands.

"Clara is with her sister in Des Moines," he said. "She's got the girls with her. I told her that I was sleeping with my secretary." 

Charlie half-laughed. "You--" 

"I couldn't tell her about this. That I'd put her and the girls in danger because of a stupid--" he laughed, shook his head. "She'd regret ever crossing paths with me." 

He looked back at the remaining luggage, made a dismissive gesture, then turned back towards the car. 

"I'm going," he said. "Maybe I'll pick up a newspaper on the way, pick out a nice, juicy murder and mail it to him. That might buy me some time." 

"He'll know," Charlie said. 

Joey looked at him with flat, dead eyes. "FBI. Good luck with that, man." 

He climbed into the SUV, gunned the engine. Then he was gone, the screen door to his house still flapping in the breeze. Mulder stared after the car for a moment, then walked up to the front steps and pulled the door closed.

"That went well," Charlie said. 

"Let's find a motel," Mulder said. "We're staying in town for a while." 

*

She was stewing. Steaming. Hot and flushed with anger and humiliation. 

Rejected, again. Left behind, again. First Joey, and then her friends, all of her friends, one by one, breaking their ties. 

The initial hesitation in Tyler's voice had hurt, his dismay as he realized why she was calling had hurt more. She had wanted to see him again. Had wanted to sit down with him, with Mac, and plan for their future. 

She wondered if Mac was disappointed in her. Disappointed that she'd made it personal. She had not intended to. But when she thought of killing, of really killing, not just in the hypothetical sense, the only face she could see was Joey's. 

He'd laughed at her. He'd fucking laughed. 

Fourteen years and sixty pounds, gone, and she still saw his idiotic laughing face every time she shut her eyes. 

She swiped furiously at her eyes, angry at herself for crying, angry at Tyler for his rejection, angry at Joey for... for being Joey. She wanted to kill someone, wanted to slip into the skin of a person she was not, could never be, just long enough to lure another overly tanned meathead away from his drink. They all liked to look at her, now, all wanted to reach out and touch her. 

She would have been invisible to those same men years ago. They deserved the exact amount of pity, of consideration that she had been paid. 

She went into the motel bathroom and splashed cold water on her face underneath a flickering light fixture. Her knife was on the counter, clean and gleaming. She touched it, smiled, felt stronger. 

It was time to hunt.

*

They pulled up in front of a motel with a flickering vacancy sign. Charlie blinked blearily at it through the passenger side window. 

"Well," he said. "This certainly isn't the Ritz." 

Mulder checked them in to a room with two double beds, stood in the doorway watching with his arms folded while Charlie rampaged around searching in vain for a mini bar. 

"What gives--?" Charlie asked, standing up and turning around. 

He moved quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him against the wall. 

"Hey--" 

"Shut up," Mulder said. "We're going to straighten something out, right now." 

Charlie stopped struggling. "All right, dammit, what?" 

"Why did you get us involved?" 

"Is this a joke?"

"I'm not laughing," Mulder said grimly. 

"I told you," Charlie snapped. "Mac is killing people." 

"The funny thing about that, Charlie, is that I can't seem to get a handle on whether you're really scared, or just in awe." 

"The hell do you mean?" 

"I think you know," Mulder said, thinking about that rapturous tone that tended to creep into Charlie's voice when he spoke about Mac. "Why did you really call us in? Are you really trying to save lives, or are you just pissed off that Mac isn't your friend anymore?" 

"What does it matter why I called?" Charlie muttered, pushing away from the wall. Mulder let him go. "I called. That's what counts." 

"Why?" Mulder pressed. 

"Why?" Charlie stood up, his voice rising. "Because I miss him, all right? And I'm fucking pissed. He was my best friend. My _best friend._ And then, right after school, he was just gone. Like I'd done something to disappoint him." He laughed, looked at Mulder with miserable, red-rimmed eyes. "I asked him to be the best man at my wedding. He didn't even show up." 

"You--"

He held up one hand, eyes wild. "And then, the asshole thinks he can just send me a package, and I'll drop everything to join his sick little game. It's _sick,_ Mulder. They're all sick. I know I don't have it in me to kill someone. And I don't have it in me to watch them do it either." 

"And you don't have it in you to let them get away with it. To let them win, am I right?" 

Charlie shrugged, looked down at the ground. "You're the hotshot profiler. I guess I'm just an open book to you." 

They looked at each other for a long moment. Mulder was angry, could feel the pulse throbbing in his temple, and he had to force himself to stop pushing. The man in front of him came from the same background as Scully, he marveled, wondered what had gone wrong and where. 

He moved towards the door. "I need a soda." 

Charlie did not answer as he stepped out into the warm night air.

Bathed in the blue light from a Pepsi vending machine, he dialed Scully on his cell phone.

"Scully," she said, her voice sounding the way it had in his former life. Fully alert, a little rushed, slightly pissed off, none of that lingering, breathy concern she'd been carrying around of late. 

"Hey," he said, cradling the phone against his ear, shutting his eyes. 

"Where the hell are you?" 

A smile crept across his face. "I'm on vacation." 

That was not what she'd expected him to say and he knew it. She paused. "A vacation?"

"A little visit to sunny Los Angeles, Scully. I'm getting used to my retirement. Fitting in a little male bonding." 

"Male bonding." She could not have sounded more skeptical if she tried.

"Turns out your brother hasn't been on a plane in a while," he said. "Can you imagine that?" 

She let out a little chuff of laughter. "Mulder, watch out for him. He can be--" 

"A pain in the ass?"

She laughed again. "I was going to say difficult." 

"Yeah, we're getting to the difficult part now, I think." 

"You're sure about this, aren't you?" her voice had gone soft, appraising.

"Yes," he said, thinking about Gerber in the graveyard. Thinking about the hard look that had crept into Tyler's eyes. Thinking about a lost, angry girl named Zoe somewhere out there in the night. "I'm sure." 

"Warren Blake has been released." 

"You're kidding," he said.

"Hampton police had to break down and admit that the spate of so-called 'violent robberies' that have been plaguing the community might not be robberies after all," she said. "They're finally considering it a serial case. I got the impression that they've been avoiding that label because of the impact it might have on tourism." 

"Gotta protect that bottom line," he muttered.

"VCU laughed me out of the room when I suggested Gerber." 

He was unsurprised. Years ago, he might have been able to approach Patterson with the Behavioral Science Unit, might have been able to persuade him. He'd have to jump through hoops for it and Patterson would have given him hell but he would have followed through. 

But Patterson was in jail, and all of Mulder's old contacts were either dead or retired or just thought he was crazy. 

"Evidence, Mulder," she said. "We need evidence. Something they can't ignore." 

"Story of my life." 

"Be careful," she said quietly.

He smiled. "Scully, when have I ever taken an unnecessary risk?"

*

Joey was lost. 

He had gotten on the highway headed south, lost his nerve and turned around. He'd sat in the shoulder, hazard lights blinking, watching the sun go down. He'd thought about his wife, about the look on her face when he'd started spinning his tale about his secretary, the shocked yelp his youngest daughter had made when she was jerked away towards the car. 

She was probably dead. They were all probably dead. If Mac ever set his sights on Joey Battista, no way would he spare his family. And if it had been Zoe, if she had gotten there first--

He'd pulled back onto the highway at that thought, suddenly picturing Zoe coming face to face with Clara, smiling, raising the knife. 

He had to go to her. Separating had been a mistake, lying about his secretary had been a mistake, hell, everything had been a mistake. They could lay low together, they could-- unless-- unless Mac had already gotten to her. Unless Mac was waiting there now, and he'd walk in and find his family dead, arranged in a gruesome throat-slit tableau, and Mac would be sitting there amidst them like a smiling favorite uncle, and he'd stand up and say "Joey, Joey, we made a deal." 

He turned around again, now no longer certain of whether he was heading east or west or north or south. It didn't matter. He was alone in his car and he was alive. He drove. 

He lost his nerve again within a half hour, pulled off the highway onto a side road littered with cheap motels and liquor stores. He had cash. He could rent a room, think about what to do next. No one would know him here. No one could find him. 

He found a suitably tacky motel and pulled into the parking lot, stepping out of his car into the night air. He felt drunk, heavy with panic, ready to scream or laugh or cry at once. 

He made it to the office door, looked at the blinking pink sign that read VACANCY. He was suddenly dizzy and bent over, vomiting up his dinner onto his shoes. He began to sob, spitting into the dirt. 

A couple came out of the office, kids, his arm around her waist. They were giggling, wrestling the key back and forth between them. 

"Hey," the girl said, stopping. "Are you all right?" 

"You okay?" the boy touched his arm. "You need a doctor?" 

Joey lifted his head, wiped a dribble of saliva from his lip. He felt a jolt as he looked into the boy's face. 

"Hey," the boy said. "Hey, it's Dr. B." He turned to the girl, a smile touching his lips. "This is my dentist--" 

Joey launched himself at the boy without even thinking, plowing into the boy's chest, his shoes slipping in the puddle of his own sick. He drove the boy backward into the stucco façade of the motel and heard a crack as his head connected with the side of the building. 

He was dimly aware that the girl was screaming. 

There was a rock on the ground, a big one, the kind a motel proprietor might use to prop open a glass door on breezy days. Joey lunged for it, swung it hard at the boy, who was just beginning to stagger to his feet. He heard a pop as the boy's jaw gave way and he hit him again, and again, and again. 

He was not conscious of thought, just of his heart, thudding painfully in his chest. He dropped the gore-slicked rock, stumbled up from the ground. He felt his jeans, his hand leaving a bloody smear on the denim. His car keys were still in his pocket. 

He ran for the car.


	9. Chapter 9

*

Mulder drove slowly past the house, trying not to look too obvious. Charlie was slouched in the passenger seat like a petulant teen, arms folded across his chest. 

He felt naked, exposed without his badge, suddenly certain that his presence in the area would be questioned. It was an unusual feeling and he marveled at it for a moment, after years of operating just barely within the constraints of the law he had finally found himself truly on the outside. 

The victim's face had been splashed all over the morning news. He was a nineteen year old kid, home from college, his face and all of those expensively educated brains reduced to a smear on the sidewalk. The grainy, black-and-white security camera footage did not show the gory details, but Mulder had seen a lot of crime scenes in his time, and he did not lack in imagination. 

The kid's girlfriend had managed to hold it together in front of news cameras for almost a full sixty seconds before dissolving into tears. "It was his dentist," she'd sobbed. 

That grainy camera footage was damning, showing one blurry figure bludgeoning another with what looked like a large rock. It had captured that blurry figure running for an SUV, and, as the car passed under a street light, Joey Battista's license plate as well as the jaunty PROUD to be YOUR Dentist bumper sticker were briefly, perfectly illuminated. 

And just like that, Joey's pleasant, unremarkable face was everywhere. 

Mulder had stood in the motel that morning drinking cheap coffee, staring at the television, watching the picture flip flop between a photograph of the grinning victim, a headshot of Joey that looked like it had come from some sort of professional journal, and the grainy footage of the attack. Over and over, rock met head, head met pavement.

He'd gone into the bathroom, run the cold water, splashed it on his face. The grinning face haunted him. He'd incorrectly assessed the situation, had realized Joey was scared but hadn't quite caught that he was desperate. A man was dead.

He'd told Charlie it was his job to be smarter than Gerber, and he'd meant it. He'd had a knack for getting into the heads of monsters, once. _What else have I misjudged,_ he'd wondered.

Charlie had watched the news report quietly, his face a little pale, his hands fisted on his lap. When Mulder had told him to get in the car, he'd done so without complaint. 

"He's not going to be back here," Charlie said as they pulled past Joey's house. "He's dumb but he's not that dumb." 

The house was quiet, closed up, no obvious sign of police presence. Mulder scanned the cars parked curbside and settled on a dark gray sedan. "They're watching." 

"What do you hope to find?"

"Something that might tell us where he went," Mulder said. "He was scared, panicked. He'll run somewhere he thinks is safe."

"His wife?"

"I don't think so," he said, pulling around the corner and onto the next street, passing rows of similar neatly kept houses. "The police will likely be waiting for him to make contact there. And too much can happen between Los Angeles and Des Moines."

He parked under a tree, turned the car off.

"What are we doing here?"

"We're not doing anything," Mulder said, slipping on a pair of gloves. "You're waiting. I'll be right back." 

"You just said that they're watching the house."

"I'm taking my chances that they're only watching the front."

"That's a stupid chance to take." 

Mulder smiled, shut the door. 

He moved quickly through the shrubbery into the back yard of the nearest house, hoping there were no nosy neighbors peering through the window. He made it into the back yard without incident, scaled the fence and found himself looking at the back of Joey's house.

A pool glimmered in inviting shades of blue. The grass was well-manicured, green, all fine thin blades with no crabgrass or clover. Expensive to maintain in a drought-prone environment. All around him were the sounds of suburbia; a sprinkler running a few houses away, the distant voices of children. A dog barked once, then fell silent. 

Breaking and entering, he thought as his lock pick clicked home. First time without a badge to back him up. He slipped into the house, footsteps seeming too loud in the silence of empty rooms. He was very aware of his own heartbeat.

There was a stack of mail on the kitchen table and he thumbed through it, not finding anything of interest. He passed a wall of framed photographs on his way into the living room and stopped to regard them. 

Joey and his wife on their wedding day, young and thin and beaming. Two grinning girls, gap-toothed and jubilant. Faces as yet untouched by tragedy. 

His phone rang and he jumped a little bit, putting it to his ear. "Mulder." 

"I saw the news." 

He shut his eyes. "I read him wrong, Scully." 

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was tentative. "This wasn't your fault." 

"I saw him, Scully. I talked to him. He was running scared, not thinking rationally." He glanced at a picture of Joey and a smiling little girl holding fishing poles and winced.

She sighed, switched gears. "Where are you?"

"Standing in his house." 

"You--" she sighed again. "Not with police permission, I assume." 

He smiled, did not answer. 

"I can't fly out there to bail you out of jail," she said, a testy edge to her voice. 

"Who's going to jail?" he said lightly, looking down at a large eight by ten photo of Joey and his wife standing in front of an impossibly blue lake. White capped mountains loomed in the distance. He wondered if it was a honeymoon picture.

"Mulder," she said. 

"Hmm?"

"When the police find Joey, do you think he'll give up Mac and the others?"

"It's the only choice he'll have."

"Do you think Mac will find him before the police do?"

He looked again at the picture of Joey and the little girl, both beaming, clutching their fishing poles in the warm summer sun. There were mountains behind them. He thought about how that little girl's life would be irrevocably changed.

"I don't know," he said finally.

"You have to find him first," she said. "Mulder, these people want their trails discovered, but they don't want anything tying them to it. Joey is a loose end. He can corroborate Charlie's story. He might be the best chance we have at ending this." 

He nodded his head as she spoke, knowing she was right. He looked at the pictures again, the two smiling girls. He squinted at the blurred background behind them. Mountains.

"Mulder," she said. "Did you hear--"

"I could have stopped him," he said again. 

"You had no way of knowing this was going to happen."

"I should have known. That man was scared." 

"There was nothing you--"

"Don't make excuses," he said, turning away from the pictures with their frozen, happy faces. The knot that had formed in his stomach that morning had returned with a vengeance. He felt ill, thinking of those little girls whose daddy had done something terrible, thinking of that boy in the motel parking lot who had lost his life, thinking of the girl who had stood by and watched him killed. He had stood in the driveway and watched Joey drive away.

He sighed, shut his eyes. "Scully--"

"Mulder--" she said at the same time. 

They both paused, each waiting for the other to continue.

After a moment he spoke again, his voice strained. "There has to be somewhere local he would go, Scully. Somewhere safe. He's panicked. He's going to look for something comfortable, something familiar. There has to be something here." 

"His office?"

"Too obvious. LAPD will have someone watching the building." 

"Then where?"

"That is the question, isn't it?"

"There was another nightclub stabbing last night. Victim was a twenty-six year old man named Joseph Wilson." 

"Another Joey," he said. "I didn't see that on the news." 

"I think the media has been preoccupied with your Local Dentist Gone Mad story." 

He considered that for a moment, wondered how Zoe would feel at being edged out of the limelight by the very man she looked to humiliate. 

He thought that maybe Mac wasn't the largest of Joey's problems. 

His gaze fell on Joey, grinning and recognizable even in goggles and winter gear, holding ski poles and standing at the head of a great precipice. And behind him, ever blue, the lake.

"Tahoe," he said.

"What?" 

"I've got to go." He hung up without saying goodbye, picked up the framed photo. 

He had started to sweat. He wondered how long he'd been in the house. 

Obstruction of justice, he thought to himself as he worked the photograph free of its frame and slipped it into his pocket. His subconscious had begun to speak in Scully's voice. He could really rack up the charges while he was out here in California. Make it so that he wasn't home in time to see the kid's birth, or his first nine birthdays. 

He pulled the back door shut behind him as he left the house, scaled the fence and slid back into his rental car without encountering anyone. It was almost a let down. 

Charlie had the radio on, his head back, his eyes closed. "You're nuts," he said. 

Maybe I've exhausted my quota of bad luck, Mulder thought. 

Charlie pointed at the radio. "Zoe killed another Joey." 

"I heard." 

"How many does that make?"

"Not enough," Mulder said grimly. He started the car. 

 

*

Headlights flashed by on the highway as the sun sank slowly behind them, painting the sky in pinks and oranges. Mulder stared at the road, the yellow lines flashing past. He noticed a car pulled over on the shoulder, a man fumbling with a dog's leash as the animal relieved itself on the grass. They faded into the background almost as quickly as he'd noticed them, the rental car shuddering with the acceleration. 

The drive should have taken eight hours. Mulder, pushing the rental as hard as he could, intended to make the trip in seven. 

Charlie was still slouched in the passenger seat, his head lolling against the window. His eyes were closed but he held himself too stiffly to be sleeping. 

The radio was off. In the silence, broken only by the soothing hum of the car engine and the rumble of passing trucks, Mulder was free once more to consider Charlie. 

He had hit a nerve the night before, he knew. In spite of Charlie's words about friendship, all signs pointed to a vein of competitiveness that ran through the group, long before murder had entered the equation. Always jostling for position, seeking to arrange themselves in order. Who was smartest? Who was best? Who was most deserving of Mac's attention? 

That was it, he thought. They had never questioned Mac's place at the head of the group, had struggled and snapped at each other like jackals over the remains. Mac was leader, he was God, he was the man in charge. He was spoken of in reverent, hushed tones; all seeing, all knowing, all planning. 

"You're staring at me," Charlie said suddenly, his voice loud in the quiet interior. He opened his eyes.

"I was just thinking," Mulder said, tightening his hands on the wheel. 

"Think in a different direction," he said. 

Mac wasn't a super villain, Mulder thought. He was just a man. Intelligent, disturbed, deranged. More organized than some. But still just a man. Their mistake had been considering him more than that. 

"Are we there yet?" Charlie asked.

Mulder looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Charlie was rumpled, unshaven. His shoulders were slumped, his demeanor defeated and tired, a far cry from the angry drunk who'd bellowed insults at his sister from the deck of a boat. 

"You've got it all wrong," Mulder said. "About Dana." 

Charlie sat up a little straighter, rubbed one deeply tanned hand over his face. 

"I don't think you really believe what you said to her," Mulder pressed on. "I think you're hurt, and angry, and scared, and you're lashing out." His voice trailed off for a moment as he thought about his own flippant words to her in his apartment, freshly scabbed wounds on his cheeks, the expectant smile melting off of her face. He took a steadying breath. "And she's not going to push the issue. But she doesn't deserve that." 

"I didn't ask you for advice," Charlie groaned, fidgeting with the seatbelt. "What the fuck prompted this?" 

"You got me involved in this mess of yours," Mulder said. "And now you're a captive audience." 

He crossed his arms, looking like a petulant child. "You're one to offer observations on the human condition. You're like a goddamned alien." 

Mulder stiffened. "What exactly do you mean by that?" 

"You walk around like the living dead or something. Like you're completely uncomfortable in your surroundings. Like you're uncomfortable in your own skin or something." Charlie waved his hand vaguely in Mulder's direction. "Even the way you hold the steering wheel-- it's like you need to make sure it's real before you trust it." 

Mulder glanced down at his clenched hands, said nothing. 

"You look like someone who's trying to convince other people that he's human." 

"I was in a coffin for three months." 

The words hung there, terrifying and frank in the confined space. He had not intended to speak them. Mulder felt suddenly tired, as though he could close his eyes and sleep for days. He readjusted his grip on the wheel instead, forced his clenched fingers to loosen. 

He could hear Charlie breathing, the other man looking straight ahead into the darkness. 

"My skin had begun to decompose," Mulder wondered who was speaking, because those words certainly could not be coming from his own mouth. He went on. "The places where they cut into me, where they did their tests, they were the first to go. My cheeks. My chest. Cells breaking down, returning to the earth. I'm sure you can imagine what that looked like." 

He shut his eyes, just for a second, saw whirring blades, flecked with blood and bits of his skin. He opened them, saw nothing but streetlights and road signs. 

Charlie let out a soft laugh. "And yet here you sit." 

"Here I sit," Mulder echoed. His own voice sounded _grave._ He thought that was pretty funny, all things considered. 

Scully, her hand twined in his. Her shocked tears, the weight of her head on his chest and her hair tickling his nose. He hadn't smelled like a corpse, he realized suddenly. Someone must have given him a sponge bath while he lay there in the hospital bed. In his mind's eye he could see Scully, pregnant and stoic, carefully tending to him and he wanted to pull off to the side of the road, wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to do _something_ because it was all suddenly too much to hold inside. 

He settled for retightening his fingers on the steering wheel. He could live with stiff knuckles for a day or two. 

"It sounds like science fiction," Charlie said finally. "My big brother thinks you're nuts." 

"What do you think?" 

Charlie shrugged. "I sent flowers to your funeral." 

"I'm sure they were lovely." 

"It just..." he favored Mulder with a self-conscious grin, looked away. "It sounds like the kind of thing that I would do." 

Mulder shook his head. "What the hell does that mean?" 

"You know," Charlie said, still looking away. "To get out of paying child support or something." 

"Is that what you think?" his voice sounded curiously calm to his own ears. Jesus, he thought. Was he the only asshole with questions about this? Was everyone around him just patiently waiting for him to get with the program? 

"I don't think that anyone really cares what I think anymore," Charlie said, his voice conversational, and he looked up, met Mulder's eyes, grinned. It was a self-deprecating grin, and Mulder thought that it was likely one of the most favored weapons in Charlie's arsenal. 

"I think you've taken great pains to put yourself in a position where no one cares what you think." 

"Ain't it grand?" That grin again, wry and hard and masking the hurt underneath, deflecting attention. 

It would be easy to get angry at a smile like that, to pick a fight. Mulder suspected that Charlie had been using that to his advantage for years. Easier to shirk responsibility that way. _She got mad at me. She threw me out of the house. She filed for divorce._ Always the one wronged, the man behind that smile. 

Pity and anger struggled for dominance. He drove on without speaking.

"Gotta be interesting to fake your own death," Charlie said. "You get an opportunity to find out what people really think of you." 

"It's not as interesting as you might think," Mulder muttered.

"So you did fake it." 

"I did," Mulder said. "Once. In 1997." 

Charlie's smile slid off of his face. "Come on. You really want me to believe that you came lurching out of a coffin like the living dead?" 

Mulder did not answer, kept up his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. 

"You had my sister convinced, though. At least, that's what mom said. You really had her going." 

_A sterile, antiseptic smell in his nostrils. There is metal under his back, ice cold. His skin is bare, chilled. He cannot move. The saws are gone, the sounds and smells of the ship are gone, the screams, the screams are gone too and that is its own terrible, wonderful relief only there is no relief, only stillness and then there she is, Scully, glimpsed through half-mast eyes that cannot blink and she stands in the doorway with her arms folded and her eyes downcast and she says "I need a minute" and the man with her says "I don't think you should--" and she lifts her head and juts out her chin and repeats herself "I need a minute" and Christ, everyone has to know by now not to stand in her way when she uses that tone--_

"Mulder?" 

He waved Charlie off, aware vaguely that his foot had come off of the gas, that the car was coasting to a stop along the shoulder, wheels bumping along the gravel. 

_And she is there by his side and the man closes the door behind him as he leaves and they are alone together in the morgue, just the two of them and all of the quiet dead and he wants to speak but he cannot and she reaches out and touches his face and he can see her hand but he cannot feel it and it briefly obstructs his vision and he realizes she is trying to close his eyes, and then all of the resolve goes out of her and he can see it, can see the moment when she wilts and her face crumples and the tears begin to flow. It is frightening and unexpected and he is not used to this, does not know what to do and there is nothing he can do but she bends to hug him, drapes his upper body with her own, her head pillowed on his shoulder the way it often is when she falls asleep in his arms except now she is quaking with sobs and he cannot lift his arms to her, cannot speak, and he is cold, so very cold._

_"Mulder," she says, her voice very close to his ear, "I'm so sorry." Her voice breaks and his heart breaks with it because he is beginning to understand what she is sorry for and he thinks oh please don't let this be what death is, please don't let it be imprisoned awareness for all of eternity. "I tried," she says. "I tried and I couldn't... I couldn't get there in time."_

_He wants to tell her that it's okay, but he can't and he's not really sure that it_ is _okay anyway because he'd screamed her name until his throat felt raw and bloody and still no one came for him except for men with changing faces and no pity to be found on any of them._

_"Mulder," she says again, and she sits up, presses a lingering kiss to his forehead, to his lips. "I didn't get to tell you. I never had a chance." She sits back, one hand on him, one hand creeping to her belly, and her voice is low and choked and her brow is crinkled and she does not smile, not even a little bit, when she says "we're going to have a baby."_

"Mulder!" Charlie was yelling, his voice gone high and panicky. 

Mulder jolted, saw the steering wheel in front of him, the road beyond. A truck rumbled past, dissipating the memory of Scully, holding his stiff gray hand to her face and saying, _"but I'm afraid, Mulder. Afraid of what this might mean."_

"What the HELL?" Charlie said, punching the dashboard. "Do you do that all the time? Jesus Christ, I thought you had a seizure or something." 

He could not handle Charlie at the moment, could not remain cooped up in the car. He struggled with the seatbelt, lurched out into the warm night air, sat down in the patchy grass on the side of the road. He looked up at the sky, the stars shining benignly above. 

He did not know if what he had just seen had been memory or conjecture, but it had felt real. The look on her _face--_

"Mulder," Charlie had rolled down the window, was half hanging out to gape at him. "Mulder, what--" 

"Just give me a minute," he gasped. 

He'd been dead, but not dead. Dead alive. Some minute glimmer of life buried within dead tissue. And if he had memories of that time, any memories, there might be more. Memories of darkness. Memories of a satin-lined box, the sound of dirt hitting the lid, the walls pressing in close around him while he waited and waited and screamed without making a sound-- 

"Stop it," he said out loud to himself, clenching his fists. He was letting his imagination run away with him. He had no conscious memory of being in the ground, had only vague and patchy memories of being on the ship at all. He'd gone away from Scully and had awakened in a hospital bed with her hand in his and tear tracks on her cheeks. There was nothing to suggest that the memory, the _vision_ he'd just had was anything other than fantasy. It flew in the face of common sense. It--

Charlie slapped him. A backhand, straight across the face. His head snapped back and then forward and he scrambled to his feet, ready to swing. 

"What the FUCK?" 

Charlie jumped backwards out of range, holding up his hands. "It works in the movies." 

Mulder tasted blood in his mouth. His heart thudded against his ribs. He realized he was still clenching his fists and forced them open, smoothed damp palms along the sides of his jeans. 

"I'm not hysterical," he said, and thought he sounded quite calm, all things considered. 

They looked at each other for a moment.

"Have you thought about seeing someone?" Charlie asked, tensed a few paces away. "You know, like a shrink?" 

Mulder had a brief image of settling onto a couch in front of an unsuspecting doctor, kicking up his feet and saying "well, I suppose it all started when my sister was abducted by aliens." He'd tried the line on a handful of bartenders through the years and found himself cut off. The last time he'd let someone look into his head, he'd wound up in a padded room and then someone had _really_ looked into his head, with scalpels and bone saws and he never got to find out if they were happy with what they'd found. 

He was aware, on some level, that he'd approached some kind of crisis, that his thought patterns were abnormal and that he really should be focusing on the problem at hand. Joey, he forced himself to think. Bad dentist, really. Smashed his patient's teeth in along with the rest of his face.

Her face. Her _face,_ and the tremor in that brave voice of hers. Real or not, his mind had shown it to him and now he could not shake the image. 

"I'm going to call a doctor," Charlie said, his voice hesitant. When he spoke again, he sounded more certain. "I'm going to call a doctor." 

"I don't need a doctor," he said, firmly pushing the image of Scully's face away, swallowing down blind panic. "We need to get back on the road. We're only about an hour away." 

"Sure," Charlie said. "Fine. But I'm driving." 

*

The Tahoe vacation home did not belong to Joseph Battista. 

It belonged to a friend of his wife's sister. Two or three times a year, their respective families met up, drank wine, let the kids swim in the lake.

The police were checking properties that the Battistas owned. Places he might have run to. 

No one thought to check the Tahoe house. It never even made the list. She doubted anyone even knew it existed.

She knew.

She knew because she had gone to his house, had slipped through a first floor window through a heavy curtain of dark, her hands still slippery wet with the life of a surrogate. She had hoped to surprise Joey and Clara, simpering, pretty Clara, in bed. She had hoped to see the recognition on his face when she cut him. 

She would go, then. Go to Mac. He alone would understand why she'd had to do it. He'd been the only one who hadn't abandoned her, who had sat up with her and listened when Joey had broken her heart and Charlie and Tyler had inadvertently trod on the pieces. Mac would shield her. 

Except Joey's bed had been empty. His drawers had hung open, belongings in disarray. His house looked as though it had been burglarized but she had looked closely and she had known in a second, had known that he'd run. He'd been scared of Mac. He'd been scared of her. 

He was right to be.

She had slid her bloody hands across his bedding, left streaks of the man she had killed in his stead along the satin sheets. And she'd sat there, cloaked by darkness, surrounded by Joey's scent and the mementos of his life, wondering where he'd go. 

He'd been married in a catering hall, surrounded by three hundred of his nearest and dearest. Charlie and Tyler, smiling like buffoons in the sea of people. Clara in a puffy sleeved bridal gown, grinning at him like he was king of the fucking world. She knew this because she'd watched it, had put on a caterer's tux and stood inconspicuous in the shadows. A passing guest handed her a dirty plate and she'd accepted it, stood holding it against her chest while Joey and his bride cut the cake. 

She'd dropped the plate in the parking lot on her way back home, had smiled at the sound of breaking china. 

She'd gone home to Montana, to her little cabin in the woods, and had tried to live her life. She'd gotten a cat. She'd taken up hiking, and biking, and skiing. She started travelling. 

She'd been in Lake Tahoe four Februarys ago, cheeks stinging from the cold air, gliding down groomed trails when she'd seen him. He stood caught in the crosshairs of his wife's camera, crouched under a trail sign, double black diamond, expert, and he'd pointed one ski pole up at it, mugged for the camera with a goofy "who ME?" kind of face. 

She'd skidded to a stop, almost lost her balance, kicked up a spray of powder. She'd looked at him, encased in his winter gear. His face was thicker than she'd remembered, older. Still handsome. His smile was the same one that had kept her awake at night in school. 

He'd looked up and seen her watching, their eyes had met and she'd felt a jolt right through her very bones. But he'd smiled and nodded and said "ma'am" like a character out of a goddamn western, no recognition on his face, nothing but stupid wide-open friendliness, and he'd readjusted his jacket and had skied off with his wife. They'd carved gracefully down the trail and out of sight, and that had been that. 

Except it hadn't, exactly. She'd followed. She'd followed all day, and she remained nearby when they sat at a big table in the cafeteria and drank hot chocolate with a group of people with identical stupid smiles on their faces. She followed when they packed up their gear and drove to a house right on the shore of the lake. She stood in the trees and watched as they made a snowman together in the front yard, giggling and sickly saccharine sweet. Like they were still newlyweds.

She followed enough to know that they went there a lot. That the people who owned the place were pretty cavalier about guests, handed out keys like they were birthday party favors. She had seen a gleam of covetousness in Clara's eyes and thought that, if asked if the house belonged to her, Clara would answer in the affirmative. She'd watched Joey swimming in the lake, Joey on the beach with his beers, Joey on the slopes with his goggles and his red hat. 

If Joey had run because of Mac, he would go to the lake. He'd be convinced no one could link him to it. He'd crouch like a cornered animal in an unlit room and wait for it to all blow over. 

She'd left her bloody calling card on his sheets in case, for some idiotic reason, he decided to return to the house. Her rental car was good on gas, the traffic nonexistent in the wee morning hours. She'd turned on the radio to listen to the news, waited to hear about her latest murdered Joe. 

Instead, she'd heard about Joey. Her real Joey. He'd surprised her, usurped her spotlight. But he'd still run. And she knew where. 

She reached the shores of Lake Tahoe by ten o'clock that morning, and was already waiting inside the house when she heard the crunch of his tires on gravel three hours later. 

*

The house looked deserted, lights off, windows shuttered, the only illumination coming from the weak moonlight. 

"No one's home," Charlie said. 

"He's here," Mulder said, sliding out of the passenger seat. The air was warm and breezy. He could hear the lake, a pleasing gentle lap of water. 

"What do we do?" 

"I'm going to go inside and convince your friend Joey that he needs to come with us." His hand went to his hip, feeling for the gun that was no longer there. 

"He's a murderer now," Charlie said. 

"And I'm counting on that to work in our favor right now. He'll be scared. He'll be looking for a way out of this." 

Charlie unhooked his seatbelt and stepped out of the car.

"Stay here," Mulder said.

"Like hell. I have a better chance at getting through to Joey than you. Besides, you're... you." 

"Is that a roundabout way of expressing concern? I'm touched." 

"I'm just trying to look out for my own ass, since I apparently can't count on you to do it for me."

"What exactly are you implying?" 

Charlie sighed, sounding a lot like Scully.

Mulder regarded the house for a moment. It was large, a rambling faux log cabin, with big windows overlooking the lake. There was a welcome mat on the doorstep, a streak of mud across the cheery lettering. 

It looked sinister there in the moonlight, but Mulder suspected that might be because he'd spent the better part of his life skulking around sinister houses in the night. 

The steps creaked under his feet as he climbed the front porch. Charlie was close behind him, breathing rapidly.

He put his hand on the doorknob, tried to think of what might convince a desperate, frightened, dangerous man that it would be best to abandon his darkened safe haven and turn himself in. 

The door creaked inward under the touch of his fingers, already unlocked. He looked back at Charlie, whose face had gone white. 

He heard the soft strains of music, and his blood ran cold. 

"Oh god," Charlie said, as they stepped into the darkened house to the unmistakable voice of Bobby Darin, singing "Mack the Knife." 

_You know when that that shark bites_

"Get down!" Mulder yelled, flinging himself quickly to the left, his hand scraping against the wall for a light switch. He saw Charlie duck out of view and then light flooded the room, revealing a sea of red on the floor, a scarlet-drenched figure tied to a chair in the middle of all that blood, and, behind that, holding up the head that had once belonged to that good-natured dentist turned murderer; a woman. 

_With his teeth babe_

She was tall and thin and pale, dressed in black like a ghostly grim reaper. She wore a fine mist of blood across her ivory skin and when she smiled at him her teeth were red. 

Behind him, the record began to skip. 

_Scarlet billows_  
Scarlet billows  
Scarlet billows  
Scarlet billows 

"Zoe," Charlie yelled, staggering to his feet. 

She whirled away from Mulder, locked eyes her old friend. Then she lobbed Joey's head at the lamp and the room went dark. 

Mulder barreled after her, feet slipping in the slick puddle of gore, his right hand curling around the butt of a gun that was no longer there. He could hear her footsteps on the wood floor, and even as he stumbled against walls and burst through the back door he knew he had already lost her to the night.


	10. Chapter 10

*

He stood and answered questions amidst the broken glass and bloodstains, kept his face resolutely turned away from the headless form that dominated the center of the room like some kind of terrible art piece. The house buzzed with police activity, with the squawk of radios and the flash of cameras. 

He was taken to the police station to answer more questions, sat on the wrong side of a table in the interrogation room and looked at the clock, watched the hours tick by. 

Her teeth had flashed red in the lamplight. She had been _biting._ She hadn't just killed Joey, she'd wanted to make it last. She'd wanted to make him suffer every bit as much as she had over the years. 

Mulder looked down at his hands, wondered if Joey would still be alive if he'd called ahead to the authorities. He hadn't anticipated Zoe. What else hadn't he anticipated? 

The detective returned to the interrogation room and sat down across from him, arms folded. He pursed his lips. Mulder knew that look, he'd seen it a thousand times before; it meant he'd succeeded in pissing someone off. He felt a small flicker of hope. 

"You've got friends in Washington," the man said after a long while.

Mulder looked at him, did not respond. 

"You think you could work with a sketch artist, get a good likeness of this Zoe chick?" 

"I only saw her for a second." 

"Yeah, well, no one can seem to turn up any recent pictures of her." 

Mulder thought of that severe white face, blood spatter on her cheeks, blood dripping from her teeth. The wild glee in her eyes. "Sure," he said. 

Two hours later he stepped outside into sunlight, found Charlie sitting on a bench outside the station, unshaven and rumpled. 

"They asked me ninety different ways if I killed him," Charlie said.

We did kill him, Mulder thought, but he did not speak out loud. The blame was his and his alone. Charlie had simply been along for the ride. 

He had seen so much death in his tenure with the FBI. Corpses that would not be stirred from their rest, would not get a second chance. People whose lives had ended in fear and pain. 

"At least they're looking for her now, right?" 

"They're looking," Mulder said. By the evening news, the sketch of Zoe would be all over the country. It would begin to unravel. Mac Gerber would have a hard time keeping his hands clean. 

"Can we go home?" 

Mulder thought again of his dream, memory, whatever the hell it was, thought of Scully's face and her tremulous voice. Home sounded good. He thought maybe it was time to talk. 

*

They stood in line at the ticket counter, amidst a crush of travelers and rolling luggage. 

Mulder gave the weary attendant behind the counter his information. As she typed into her computer, his cell phone rang. 

Scully, he thought, and pressed the phone to his ear, suddenly eager to hear her voice.

"Agent Mulder?" A man's voice, familiar. 

He gave the ticket attendant an apologetic smile. "Sorry, who is this?" 

"James West," the man said. There was a gentle twang in his voice. "From Austin PD?"

"Detective West," he said, surprised. "What can I do for you?" 

"Look, under ordinary circumstances my boys would be pissed as hell that I'm calling the feds in on this. But you seemed like an okay guy." He laughed. "You were right. Goddammit, you were right." 

His heart sped up. "Tyler Moore? You have something on him?" 

Charlie looked up sharply. The woman behind the ticket counter gave him a stern look and gestured to the line behind them. 

"We got lucky-- he missed a surveillance camera on his last hit. Footage was muddy but showed a big guy, face concealed. He had tattoos on his hand. We received a tip on a scumbag by the name of Skip Wayne. Landlord recognized him from the tattoos, said she always felt a little nervous around him." 

"Skip Wayne?" Mulder asked, distracted, handing over his credit card. "I thought you said this was about Tyler Moore." 

"We took down Wayne's apartment this morning," West said. "He wasn't home. But, get this, he wiped all of the surfaces clean. No prints. Not even a speck of dust anywhere. What kind of person does that?" 

"Someone who's trying to hide something," Mulder said. 

"We found one he missed. A thumbprint, on the back of a light bulb in the bedroom. Three guesses who it belonged to." 

Mulder felt a surge of excitement, the exhaustion of the previous night bleeding away. "Have you brought him in?" 

"We're mobilizing now. You want in on this, Agent Mulder?"

He supposed there was no sense in letting slip that he was no longer employed by the FBI. 

"I'm in the Reno airport now," Mulder said, scanning the board of upcoming flights. "I can be there in three hours." He hesitated. "We need him alive, Detective. This is bigger than Austin." 

"Call me when you land, I'll give you details." 

Mulder waved the attendant back. "Sorry, I need to change one of those tickets to Austin, Texas." 

"What the hell?" Charlie said. 

"Go home," Mulder said. "I've gotten you into enough of a mess as it is." 

"But what are you--" 

"Your friend Tyler slipped up. I want to be there when they bring him in. If I can get a statement out of him, we should finally have enough for a warrant on Gerber." 

Charlie gave him a tentative smile. "You think we can get him?" 

"There's a good chance." Home, and Scully, would have to wait. He took his ticket from the counter, glanced up at the clock. He'd have to run to catch his plane.

"Good luck," Charlie said. 

*

Tyler chewed on his pencil. 

The television was on, looping news footage of the murder in Tahoe. He looked at the aerial shot of the cabin, surrounded by police cruisers and yellow tape. 

Joey. 

Fucking Joey. 

He had not thought highly of his old friend for years until this had started up, found himself surprised by the flood of emotion that had come upon learning of his death. He'd sat, damp-eyed, in front of the television for the better portion of the morning, thinking of Joey and his idiot grin, the way he'd kept at that guitar even though he never really learned how to play. 

Angela had whined about the baseball game, and he'd finally sent her and Bradley out into the backyard, promised them ice cream. 

And he'd sat, for the better part of an hour, chewing his pencil and thinking about Joey, about Zoe, about how they'd done her wrong and how she'd gotten her revenge. 

He wondered if she was satisfied, if she'd call it off. If she'd go back to her secluded life in Montana, all demons exorcised. Or would she resume killing bar scene Josephs? Or, could it be possible that she'd then look to take revenge on the other friends who had shunned her, who had turned away when she'd been left alone and heartbroken? Would there be a sudden scourge of Texas area Tylers? 

She would have taken her time with Joey. It wouldn't have been easy for him. 

He spit out the little pink flecks of eraser, put his pencil down, suddenly restless. If Angela and Bradley had been with their mother, he would have driven over to the apartment, slipped into Skip Wayne's skin and gone out on the town. There were a number of garages, a number of women he had targeted. Any one of them would do. 

His daughter's squeal of glee from the back yard brought him back to reality. He would not subject his children to Skip Wayne, no matter how restless he became. He would have to wait until they went back home. 

Then he'd be free to work out his frustrations. 

He turned back to the television, watched the endless footage. The cabin, the lake, still photos of Joey and his family, still photos of the boy Joey killed during his mad escape attempt, the grainy security camera footage, a police sketch of Zoe. 

She'd lost weight, he noted. But that face was unmistakable, even crudely rendered in pencil. 

A breaking news headline began to scroll across the bottom of the screen. 

BREAKING NEWS: HOME OF SUSPECT IN PARKING GARAGE SHOOTINGS RAIDED MORE DETAILS AT FIVE

He sat up straight, heart jack hammering in his chest. 

They couldn't have, he told himself. He'd cut the security feed. There was no grainy footage of him circulating around out there, not like Joey the deranged dentist. They couldn't have found Skip. 

Except. 

Except he hadn't watched television yesterday, he'd taken Angela and Bradley to the park. He hadn't even watched the evening news. Angela had rented a movie, some fluffy thing about a girl building a plane to guide geese, and they'd made popcorn and stayed up late.

This morning, the news had been all about Joey.

It had to be a mistake. He was smarter than that, he would not have left a trail. 

The sudden doubt made him feel sick to his stomach. 

Could someone have fixed the game? Could Mac... or Zoe...? Or Charlie, even, no one had heard from him since this whole thing began. 

He stood up, went to the window, looked out. His street looked normal, peaceful, nothing out of the ordinary. Still, he felt restless, anxious. 

He went to the back door, stuck his head out. "Angela! Bradley!" 

They came running, flushed and sweaty. I should have made them wear sunscreen, he thought with a rush of guilt. 

"Ice cream!" Angela shrieked, grabbing onto his arm and swinging, her little sandaled feet leaving the floor. 

"I've got a better idea," he said, latching the back door. "Let's go to the movies." 

*

A police cruiser met Mulder at the airport. 

"He wasn't home," the officer told him as he floored the gas and merged onto the highway. "We had a media blackout, but a news station leaked that we'd moved on a suspect. He must have pieced together that we found his alias and took off." 

They pulled up to Tyler's neat house, now swarming with police activity. Detective West caught Mulder's eye as he stepped out into the blazing sun, waved him over.

"I take it you heard what happened?" West said. His genial demeanor had fled, his cheeks flushed and his movements rapid. "News station must have spooked him. Television was still on when we came in. We've got an APB out on him now. There's going to be a full investigation into the leak when this is all over." 

"What did you find in the house?" 

"Guy is neat as a pin. Nothing here to link him, not yet. He's got a shotgun locked in an upstairs closet, home defense sort of deal, but that's not the murder weapon." 

"Just the print," Mulder said thoughtfully. "Can I look around?" 

"Be my guest." 

He stepped into the living room, snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Flashbulbs went off to his right as a police photographer honed in on the mantel with its array of family photos. To his left, another officer rifled through books and photo albums, tossing them onto a pile when he was done with them. 

Mulder moved past them, past the television with its cycling news footage and talking heads. He looked at the computer, the monitor dark. The fan still whirred; Tyler had not shut the machine off.

"Did anyone check this?" 

One of the officers looked up, shook his head. "We're gonna bag it and take it back. We've got a team that'll check the hard drive." 

Mulder reached out a gloved hand, switched on the monitor. 

"There's a document open," he said.

"Probably his next book," West said, coming into the room. "He can finish it in prison." 

Mulder scrolled through the text. The descriptions chilled him.

"The first victim," he said to West. "Describe her." 

West scratched his head. "Lawyer. Pretty blonde lady, mid-forties. Wearing a white linen suit." 

Mulder turned the monitor so that the detective could see.

>   
>  Her blonde hair fanned around her on the dirty asphalt, the white linen of her expensive suit soiled by motor oil and grit. Her eyes were wide as she struggled, manicured fingers beat ineffectively against his chest. In the courtroom she was mighty, undefeatable, but here in the damp dark of the parking garage she was outmatched, defeated, and she gave up her last breath with only a weak objection.   
> 

"Jesus," West said.

"He's shooting them but it's not what he wants to do," Mulder said. "He wants to be up close. This is his way of making it right." 

"Bag this and tag it," West snapped to the officer rummaging through the books. "Get it back to headquarters. I want to know everything on this machine by tonight." 

"We have to find him," Mulder said. "If he's feeling cornered, he might do something rash." It was Joey he thought of, Joey in the parking lot, slamming a kid's head against the ground in blurred black-and-white.

"This isn't rash enough?" West muttered, looking around. "I mean, what would compel a guy to do this? Family man, no money troubles, no prior history." 

"That's why we have to talk to him." 

West's phone began to ring. He excused himself, stepped off towards the window with his cell tucked against his ear. 

Mulder looked at the mantel, faces in photos beaming back at him. 

"Agent Mulder," West said.

He turned back. West was frowning, the phone no longer in his hand. For a moment, Mulder wondered if the person on the other line had been Kersh, if the jig was up and he was about to be summarily escorted back to Washington.

"I've got some of my men over at the ex wife's. She's hysterical, saying that Tyler has the kids." 

Mulder's stomach sank. "He won't hurt them," he said, scanning the photos. 

"You sure about that?" 

He looked hard at the smiling faces, the pigtailed little girl, the broad-shouldered little boy. "I hope so." 

West's phone began to ring again. He lifted it to his ear, listened. When he put it down, he was smiling. "We've got something." 

*

Angela and Bradley were giggling through the end credits of _Shrek,_ and Tyler sat beside them in the dark theater, sweating in spite of the air conditioning, wondering what to do. 

It's a mistake, he told himself. They followed a tip on the wrong man. It happens all the time. 

Except the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach said otherwise. It had been Zoe, he was certain of it. She'd flipped him in as revenge. Joey got the end of the blade and he got the long arm of the law. 

He wondered what she had in store for Mac, for Charlie. Had she called them too? Had they brushed her off the way he had? 

"Daddy?" Angela's little voice. 

He turned to look down at her, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Yeah?" 

"I SAID did you LIKE the part where--" 

"Not now," he shushed, standing up and glancing around the darkened theater. The other patrons had all exited, leaving nothing but empty seats, spilled popcorn, sticky floors. His handgun, no, _Skip's_ handgun, was heavy in his jacket pocket. 

He hadn't remembered bringing it.

That wasn't all, he forced himself to admit. He hadn't remembered to leave it in the apartment after the last one, after he'd shot the woman in the pink dress. His hands had been shaking so badly with the want, with the _need_ to wrap them around her neck that his first shot had gone wide, she'd almost had a chance to turn and run before he'd taken her down. 

He'd _slipped up._

He'd slipped up and he'd almost _missed_ and then he'd forgotten to leave the gun at Skip's. And if he'd forgotten that, what else had he forgotten? 

_What else?_

"But Daddy--" 

"Come on," he said, tugging on her hand. 

"Are we getting ice cream now?" Bradley asked, his voice hopeful. 

"Fine," Tyler said, moving quickly out into the lobby. He squinted in bright sunlight as he stepped out onto the street, looked around. Was anyone staring at him? The girl at the ticket counter? The couple that skirted around him on the sidewalk? 

Maybe. But he was a local celebrity. People stared at him all the time. There was nothing to suggest this was anything different. 

Except-- except usually they were smiling, and now--

He allowed his children to lead him, his head down, jostling through the crowds. 

He began to regret leaving the dark anonymity of the movie theater. Maybe the kids would want--

Bradley yanked on his hand. "Ice cream!"

He looked up, saw the ice cream shop with its glass front and jauntily decorated windows. 

"I want every flavor," Angela said solemnly. 

There was a television on the wall of the shop. Through the glass, Tyler saw his own face. 

"Let's go," he said. 

Angela's eyes filled with tears and he watched it happen, watched her chest puff out as she prepared for an astonishing meltdown. She was going to draw every eye on the street when she started yelling. 

He glanced towards the shop again, saw that the television had gone to commercial.

"Get your ice cream first," he said, yanking money out of his wallet, shoving it into Bradley's hand. His son looked at him for a moment, his face questioning. In another life, Tyler might have appreciated his perceptiveness. 

"Come on," Bradley said, taking his sister's hand. Angela had stopped mid-cry, her jaw slack, her face stunned. They went through the door, a bell tinkling overhead. 

Tyler watched them approach the counter, fiddled with the baseball cap he wore over his close-cropped hair. He pulled it down, tried to shield his face. Another mistake, he realized. He didn't wear baseball caps. _Skip_ wore baseball caps. 

Zoe. It had to have been Zoe. He would have liked to find her, to take that pale little face of hers between his hands and crush it. 

He could have beaten Mac, Mac who had always made the same mistake that everyone else did and assumed him less intelligent because of his size, because his face had a dumb look to it. Mac, who had always believed himself superior. 

He started walking, did not think about it. 

The idea to leave them there, to turn and walk away and get to his car, to make a run for the border, dawned on him in a sudden hot rush. He turned on his heel, lurched back along the sidewalk without looking back, one hand curled around the gun in his pocket like a talisman. 

*

West slammed his fist into the wall. An elderly couple perusing the coming attraction posters turned to look at him, edged away. 

Outside, blue and red lights blazed. 

"How long?" Mulder asked. 

The teenage girl in the ticket booth was pale and trembling as she blinked back at them. "He was just-- he just--" 

"Where did he go?" he pressed, too tense to be tactful, knowing he might regret not taking the time to be gentle later. "Where?" 

"Ice cream," she finally stammered. "The little boy said something about ice cream." 

"Which way?" 

She pointed.

He took off at a run.

"THIS WAY!" West bellowed behind him as they burst out of the lobby and back onto the street. The police cruisers roared to life, screaming along like the cavalry as Mulder and West pushed their way through pedestrians. 

It was hot, too damn hot, and the sweat was pouring down his face and back as he rounded the corner and came face to face with Tyler Moore. 

They regarded each other for a moment. Tyler's face was flushed, his hair hidden by a baseball cap, his mouth caught in a perfect O of surprise. He was alone. 

"Jesus," West said, drawing his gun. "FREEZE!" 

Tyler's hand twitched in his pocket.

Mulder had no gun of his own to draw, settled for holding out his hand in a placating manner. 

"Tyler," he said. "This doesn't have to end badly." 

The big man shook his head, smiling. It was not entirely the smile of a sane man. 

"Was it her?" he said. "Tell me. Did I screw it up, or did she fix it?" 

"We'll talk," Mulder said, his voice low, soothing. "I'll tell you everything you want to know. Just put your hands up." 

"Tell me it was her." 

A motion behind Tyler caught Mulder's eye and he looked past the big man at the storefront. Ice cream. The door was opening. His heart sank.

"Dad?" a small boy stepped out of the shop, holding two vanilla ice cream cones. He drew up short when he saw the police. 

Tyler lifted the gun. 

"No--" Mulder said, but it was too late, Tyler had taken aim at his little boy and the officers surrounding him had responded in kind. Their guns crashed as Tyler did a jerky dance on the pavement. 

The boy's face registered a sick stunned surprise as he looked down at his father. He dropped the ice cream cones. 

Mulder pushed through the barricade and bolted for Tyler, could see at a glance that the wounds were fatal, red blood pooling on the asphalt. 

"Mac Gerber," Mulder said, dropping down next to the wheezing, jittering body. "Tell them it was Mac Gerber." 

Tyler's eyes rolled towards him, locked on. Blood dribbled through his lips, down his chin. "I didn't think I'd be the first." 

An EMT with a medical bag fell to his knees next to Tyler, tried to staunch the bleeding. 

"Mac Gerber," Mulder said again. "He put you up to this. Say it." 

"Wasn't gonna shoot him. Make sure he knows that." 

"I'll tell him," Mulder said, his voice low and urgent, his hands burning on the pavement. "But you have to do something for me. Tell them." 

"The game was fixed," Tyler said, and died. 

*

He flew home in near silence, his head against the window, watching the scenery shift below him. 

Blood and ice cream mingling in the street. Blood on a cabin wall. Black blood on parking lot gravel. Blood, his own blood, pooling and running as they cut into him, again and again and again. 

The look on that little boy's face, standing over the body of his daddy. The look on Scully's face, standing over him in the morgue. He'd gone into the ground dead but not dead. He'd come up again alive but not alive.

When he landed, he took a cab to Scully's apartment rather than his own.

She was not home, and he stood in the hallway for almost half an hour, waiting for her, too uncomfortable to use his key because he wasn't sure if he still did that in his new life. 

When she didn't return he gave up, called another cab to take him home. When he unlocked his front door to find her sitting on his couch he had to smile. 

"Hi," he said.

She favored him with a relieved smile, switched off his television. "I heard what happened. It's all over the news." 

"I'm 0 for 2," he said, the words flippant but the tone dark. He sat down on the couch next to her, leaned his head back against the cushions, shut his eyes. 

"Mulder," she said gently, taking his hand. He lifted his head to look at her. "They have to take this seriously now. Three out of the four people Charlie named have been implicated in violent crimes." 

"Are they arresting Gerber?" 

Her expression told him everything he needed to know.

"It's not enough," he said. 

"They're looking into Gerber," she countered. "Closely." 

"Are they tailing him? Wiretapping him? It's not going to be that easy, Scully, this guy doesn't make mistakes." 

"They've questioned him," she said. "He's spotless. You knew he would be." 

"They have to push him." 

She looked away. "Kersh is furious that you stepped into an investigation without authorization." 

"Two investigations, actually," he offered.

"He wanted to prosecute you." 

"Then why didn't he?" 

"I don't know," she said, and when she lifted her gaze to his again he could see that she was angry. "I can't even begin to speculate." 

The look on her face made him uneasy and he stood up, restless, fidgety.

"Mulder," she said.

He stopped pacing, waited.

"I think it's time for you to step away." 

"Is that you talking, or Kersh?" 

She looked affronted. "How can you even ask me that?" 

"You both seem to want the same thing." He was tired, queasy, found himself wishing that she had not been there waiting for him after all. He had not wanted to fight with her.

She stood up, pregnant and weary and giving him that look, the one he'd only recently become acquainted with, the one that said that he was the cause of all of her woes. "What I want," she said, and her voice was tight, spoken through clenched teeth. "Is for you to stop playing so fast and loose with your life." 

"What the hell does that mean?" 

"Dammit, Mulder," she said. "Kersh won't hesitate the next time. You're out of the FBI. Any legitimate authority you ever had to pursue this case is gone." 

"So I should just give up? Let Gerber go on killing? He's not going to stop, Scully, he likes it too much." 

"There is nothing you can do now that isn't already being done," her voice dropped low, beseeching. "Mulder, I just got you back. For you to wind up in jail because of something like this, to lose any more time--" 

He shut his eyes, felt sick. "I'm back, Scully. I'm here." 

"I know," she said, her eyes damp. "It's a--" 

"Don't say miracle," he said, his voice harsher than he'd intended. "Whatever happened to me, God had nothing to do with it." 

She closed her mouth, looked at him with a half stunned expression, like she'd been slapped.

He felt guilty and tired at the sight of her face, wanted her to leave before they went any further down this sorry path. He opened his mouth to tell her that he'd see her tomorrow. Instead, he said "You came to see me in the morgue." 

She did not speak for a moment, just looked at him, eyes wide and confused. 

"Didn't you?"

She nodded slowly and now she was crying, his Scully, always so strong, now this strange and unfamiliar fragile creature. How had he ever entertained the idea that she'd been relieved to have him in the ground? 

"You came to see me and you held my hand," he said. "You apologized, and I didn't know for what at first. And then you told me-- you told me we were going to have a baby." 

"You were there?" she asked, and put her hand to her mouth. 

He looked down at where her other hand cradled her pregnant belly, thought about the surprise and anger and fear and resentment that he'd struggled with since awakening in the hospital to find her changed. "I don't know," he said. "I think so. It's all very unclear." 

"Do you remember," she swallowed. "Anything else?"

"No," he said. "And I don't want to." 

"I found out I was pregnant and that you were gone on the same day," she said, lifting her eyes to meet his. There were tears in her eyes but her gaze was steady. "The same day, Mulder." 

"How?" he asked, and wasn't that the question he'd wanted to ask all along, the question he'd been so afraid of? 

"I don't know," she said. 

"Scully," he said. "With the people we have working against us, 'I don't know' isn't going to cut it. Have you considered the possibility that--" 

The look she gave him was flat, patient, tired, the way that one might look at a child gearing up for a tantrum. He felt suddenly foolish, wondered again exactly what had transpired over the course of his absence. He had, he realized, never thought to ask.

"I've been awake for almost forty-eight hours," he said by means of an apology.

"I'll let you get some rest," she said, her voice flat, mechanical. She moved towards the door without looking back.

"Scully," he said. 

She turned, her hand on the doorknob. 

"The in vitro didn't work." 

"No," she said quietly. "It didn't." 

She went out the door and into the night, left him to wonder. 

He was tired, drained, heavy with a sick dull sense of hopelessness. He slid into bed and willed sleep to come, found it elusive. 

Finally he gave up, fumbled for his car keys. 

*

The cemetery was quiet and nearly deserted under the pink dawn sky. Mulder walked slowly amongst the rows of memorials, smooth worn stones. He kept his hands in his pockets, tread softly on the grass. He thought he might never again feel truly comfortable amongst the dead. 

There had been hardly any traffic on the road to Raleigh, and he'd taken the four hour trip in silence, left the radio off, marked time by the passing of the streetlights. 

He had made the trip countless weekends following his mother's suicide, had visited her more in death than he ever had in life. He'd been angry with her, hollowed out and numbed by what she'd done, furious that she'd left him with no answers, only questions, endless questions. He'd arrive early morning, always alone--if Scully knew or even suspected his actions she'd never let on, had granted him his privacy-- and stand over the graves, he, the last living member of his family. 

He'd never asked questions, never demanded answers of the still morning air, the cool earth. His mother, his father, his sister, the reasons for everything he'd done, everything he'd become.

There was a man standing over the gravestone, in the spot that Mulder usually stood. 

He drew up short, startled. 

The man was wearing a well-tailored suit, expensive, black leather gloves. The gloves were strange, the morning air was cool but not chill and the rising sun was already warm on his back. 

There was a bouquet of flowers in the man's arms. 

The man crouched, touched one of the stones. Not his mother's, but the one to the right. Mulder tensed as he realized it was his own. 

"Excuse me," he said, stepping forward. 

The man stood up, leaving the bouquet propped against the stone. He brushed his hands together, smiling, teeth gleaming white in the morning light. 

Mac Gerber.

"Agent Mulder," he said, and his voice was warm, rich. "Or, I suppose it's Mr. Mulder these days." He offered one gloved hand, left it hanging in the space between them. After a moment, the hand dropped to his side. He was still smiling. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Paying my respects," Gerber said. 

"Cut the crap." 

The smile did not fade from Gerber's face. "Yours is an interesting story, that's all. And since you paid me a friendly visit, I thought it would only be polite to do the same for you." 

"And you even brought flowers," Mulder said, glancing down at his own headstone-- how jarring, to see his own name there, carved into stone-- and taking in the bright blooms against smooth marble. "How sweet." 

"Gerber daisies, of course. Since you seemed so very enamored of them when we last met." 

"That's very thoughtful of you," Mulder said. 

"I must admit," Gerber said. "I'm a bit surprised to see you here. I do not believe that most men have the luxury of visiting their own graves." 

"You think you're above it," Mulder said, smiling a little bit. Gerber was the same old story, just dressed up in a pretty package, all charm and wealth and gloss. "But you're no different from any of the others I've caught, that I've stopped. And I will stop you." 

Gerber grimaced, an exaggerated twist of the lips. "Your words could be construed as a threat." He took a step back, put the headstone between them, gave Mulder a rueful smile. "You know, I have read studies that indicate that law enforcement is one of the most attractive positions for sociopaths."

"The same has been said about CEOs." 

They looked at each other across the gravesite. Mulder was smiling, a tight, hard smile that hurt the muscles in his jaw. He wondered when Scully was going to step in, put a hand on his arm, tell him _enough now, enough._

He felt himself being sized up.

Gerber smiled again, mildly, held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. He turned away, suit jacket flapping in the breeze. 

Mulder stood rooted to the spot, looking down at the etched stone that bore his name, at the bright flowers, at the place where he had once been laid not to rest. 

*

His cell phone rang while he was on the highway, inching back towards D.C. in rush hour traffic. He fumbled it out of his pocket, tucked it against his ear. 

"Mulder," Scully said. 

I'm sorry, he wanted to say. He wasn't sure, at this point, what to apologize for. For dying, he thought. For leaving. For coming back like this. 

"Mac Gerber has been busy," he said instead. "He has impeccable manners." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"He left flowers on my grave. Gerber daisies, my favorite." 

She did not answer him, and he took the phone away from his ear, glanced at it, wondered if the connection had been lost.

"Scully?" 

He heard her intake of breath. 

"Your grave," she said, and her voice was small. 

"He was there, this morning. I spoke to him." 

"You went to your grave," she said, and it was not a question.

"It's, ah, a little weird that the headstone is still there, actually." he said, all forced joviality. "I'm thinking about having it made into a new coffee table." 

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. 

"Scully?" he asked finally. "Are you... is there some reason you called?" 

There was only the click of the call disconnecting.


	11. Chapter 11

*

Mulder drove back to his apartment, hands clamped on the wheel. 

Once he might have tailed Gerber all the way back to Long Island, would have hung around and made a nuisance of himself, nothing quite illegal, hovering just on the outskirts of private property, just enough to send the distinct message _you are being watched._ He'd have goaded and goaded and goaded, ready and eager to dance out of the way when Gerber finally snapped. 

It wouldn't work on Gerber, he thought. But whether this was because Gerber was different or because he himself was different, he couldn't say. 

He sat on his leather couch, listened to the burble of his fish tank. 

Two killers dead, one on the run, and another one blindingly, brilliantly untouchable. He had gone into this with every advantage and had still managed to let it slip through his fingers. He had known names, faces, locations. All he'd had to do was put it together in time and yet he'd still found himself stumbling helplessly in the wake of carnage, _reacting_ instead of _anticipating,_ out of touch and out of his depth with his very bones chanting _I don't want to do this anymore._

He could no longer trust his own judgment. Not entirely, not in this. Once upon a time, rash behavior had gotten him results. Now it got people killed. It had gotten _him_ killed.

He thought again of the little boy under the Texas sun, wide eyes and melting ice cream. Kids had always hit him hard. Even before the X Files, when he was just a rising star profiler with a smart mouth and a sad family history. They all looked the same, kids at crime scenes. All hooded eyes and drained complexions illuminated by flashes of red and blue, swaddled in blankets, faces numb and uncomprehending. He looked at them and saw himself as he must have been, once, just a too-tall twelve year old who had failed at his first true test. 

The knowledge that his father was a serial murderer was never going to make Bradley Moore feel any better about being splashed with his blood on a crowded city street. Nothing anyone said would ever make him forget the image of his father aiming a gun at him. 

Sloppy, going after Joey alone. Sloppy, assuming Gerber was the only threat. Sloppy, not accounting for Zoe. If he had pulled this on one of Patterson's cases back in the day, he'd have been fired. If he'd have been this sloppy on an X File, he'd have been killed. 

Well.

Been there, done that. On both counts.

He sat up, smiling grimly, wishing there was someone around to appreciate his gallows humor. Appreciation of gallows humor had been in short supply since his return. 

Two knocks at his door, firm. Official. 

He stood, stretched, suddenly all too aware of a bone deep fatigue, too much travel, too little sleep. 

He opened the door without bothering to look through the peep hole, stood aside as Scully brushed past him. Her shoulders were back, she walked with a purposeful stride. There was nothing gentle or tentative in her motions. 

Frankly, it was a relief.

"Scully," he said. 

She whirled around, eyes flashing, and there it was, that gaze that could cut a man off at the knees, the fierce composure that could bring an entire room to heel. 

"You have news?" he asked, rubbing his hands over his face, felt the stubble. He must look like hell.

The look she flicked in his direction all but confirmed it. "Handwriting analyses are a match for Tyler and Zoe on the packages that Charlie received."

"That's great," he said. "Considering one of them is dead and the other has an eyewitness account placing her at a crime scene." 

"It's an additional layer of proof," she said coolly. "Considering that said eyewitness is a disgraced former FBI agent with a reputation for spinning tall tales." 

"Tall tales?" The anger rose suddenly and he took a step towards her. "Is that--" 

"Gerber's handwriting is not a match." 

He scowled, moved past her into the living room. "Of course it's not. He would never have been so lazy." 

"It casts doubt." 

"Do you doubt it?" 

She was silent for a long moment. "No. Of course not." 

"Then what's the problem? You've always been _reasonable._ No propensity for 'tall tales'--" 

She let out a bark of laughter, clapped a hand to her mouth. 

He looked at her, met her eyes.

"You really have no idea," she said. 

"Call them back, tell them Gerber was at my grave. Tell them he threatened me. It should be enough to pull him in for questioning." 

"They're going to stop listening as soon as I get to the 'at your grave' part," she snapped. "Do you have any idea how that sounds?"

He groaned, stalked away, turned back towards her. He wanted to yell, wanted to tip furniture over, wanted to cause a scene. Wanted to act every bit the lunatic the FBI was convinced he was. 

"We have to get your brother somewhere safe," he said finally, reining himself in. Sloppy, he thought. Gerber wasn't going home to Long Island. He knew that the rule book for his little game had been thrown out. He'd feel the noose tightening, would take steps to cut himself free. And someone like Gerber would have planned for this, wouldn't he? He'd have to suspect that there'd be at least one in his group unwilling to go along. He'd have contingency plans. And contingency plans for his contingency plans. 

She held his gaze, steady and calm. "Yes." 

He was already moving, grabbing his jacket. "Even if there isn't enough evidence to move on Gerber, they can't ignore Charlie's connection to all of this. Three of the four people he named have been linked to violent crimes. It's enough to get him moved into a safehouse. If that doesn't work, have him arrested. At least he'll be safe while the FBI pulls its collective head out of its ass." 

"Mulder," she said. 

He talked right over her, his voice picking up speed, his anger dissipating as his mind began to whirl. "You'll have to call it in, since I seem to have fallen a few rungs below 'most unwanted' in the FBI's book these days." 

"Mulder." 

"The detective in New York," he said. "Murray. He might have new information. You'll have to speak to him." 

"Mulder!" 

He stopped talking, stopped walking, turned to face her. She had not moved from the center of his living room. "What?" He heard the impatience in his voice, winced a little. He stepped closer, dropping his voice. "What's wrong?" 

"What's next?" she countered.

"What do you mean?" 

"Knock it off, Mulder." A crease had appeared between her brows. She no longer looked determined, just tired and pissed off. "You move Charlie and his family into protective custody and then what? Go haring off after Gerber on your own?"

"No," Mulder said. "We wait for him to come to me." 

She let out a disbelieving huff. "And why would he do that?" 

"If I had a dollar for every psychopath who wanted to designate me their 'worthy adversary' the kid wouldn't need a college fund," he nodded towards her stomach, smiled a little. 

She shut her eyes, shook her head, her face resigned.

"Charlie disappointed him," Mulder said. "He wasn't expecting anything from Joey, or Tyler, or Zoe, regardless of what they might have thought. It comes down to Charlie. It always has." 

"Why Charlie?"

"All along, Charlie has been saying that Gerber was his best friend. But what we haven't been considering is that Charlie was _Gerber's_ best friend." 

"Why does that matter?" 

"Gerber doesn't form attachments, Scully. He networks, makes shallow connections, keeps them around so long as they're useful to him. He turns on the charm and it's blinding, no one can tell the difference. But it's an act." 

"Right. What makes Charlie any different?" 

"Your brother said that Mac was supposed to be his best man." 

"And he didn't show up," Scully said. "He didn't care. He never did." 

"No," Mulder shook his head. "He didn't show up because he _did_ care."

"You're not making any sense." 

"Charlie said that Mac called him that morning, told him he was making a mistake. Practically begged him not to do it. If he didn't care, he would have gone, given a speech, smiled for all the photographs, been the perfect gentleman. He didn't go because he _respected_ Charlie. Considered him-- if not an equal-- than at least someone worthy of his time. He didn't want to see Charlie reduced to something ordinary." 

"He thought Charlie would play along," she breathed. 

"He _hoped_ Charlie would play along," Mulder said. "But he would have planned for the alternative." 

"It was either going to be the two of them, reunited by a common purpose..." 

"Or Gerber taking his revenge for the perceived abandonment," Mulder said, slightly breathless with the realization. "Either way, he wins." 

"So if you take Charlie out of the picture..." 

"He'll come for the next best thing." 

She met his eyes. Her own were wide with alarm. "What do you need from me, Mulder?" 

"Something I haven't had in a long time," he said.

She lifted her head, met his eyes. He read the question in the quirk of her eyebrow.

"Your trust." 

Scully held his gaze, did not blink, did not look away. After a long moment, she nodded. 

"Get to Michelle and the kids," he said. "Take Doggett with you. If the bureau won't agree to a safehouse take them to a motel, somewhere he won't think to look for you. Just get them out. I'll pick up Charlie." 

*

The sky was blue, the sun deceptively cheerful. The marina bustled with activity, the docks crowded with men carrying fishing gear, families toting coolers, teenage girls in bikinis. 

Charlie's boat bobbed gently in its slip, curiously devoid of activity. Mulder looked at the empty chair on the deck and felt a knot of anxiety clench in his chest. 

His hand went to his hip, felt for the gun that wasn't there. He approached slowly, scanning the deck for anything amiss. An empty beer can rolled to and fro in time with the gentle sway of the sea. Unopened mail lay in a haphazard pile next to the steering wheel. 

"Charlie?" he called, stepping up and onto the boat. 

He slipped a hand into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone. 

"Down here," Charlie called. He sounded ill. 

Hung over, Mulder thought. Wouldn't be the first time. With a palpable sense of relief, he ducked his head and stepped down into the boat's cabin. He blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light. 

"I'll take that," Mac Gerber said from the shadows to his left, plucking the cell phone from his hand and tossing it aside.

He whirled, found himself with a gun pressed against his temple. Gerber grinned cheerfully at him from behind the barrel. 

Across the room he could make out Charlie, bound to a chair. 

"Sorry," Charlie gasped. "He has a gun." 

"And you don't," Gerber said, never taking his eyes from Mulder. "Come on down here. I'll take this moment to tell you the same thing I told Charlie: if you call out, or do anything in any way to attract attention, I will shoot you. And then I will shoot a number of innocent bystanders, just to be thorough. There are quite a lot of people on the docks this afternoon; it would be like shooting fish in a barrel."

Mulder obliged, stepping further into the cabin. Without the horizon to orient him, the gentle rocking motion made his stomach lurch. 

"I thought you'd be here sooner," Gerber said, shoving Mulder down into a chair and yanking his hands behind him. "I thought I gave it all away at the cemetery. But--" he grunted as he tore duct tape, binding Mulder's wrists together. "As usual, I overestimated my opponent." 

"You know," Mulder said. "All this showmanship is really starting to get on my nerves." 

"Don't worry, Mr. Mulder, it will all be over very soon." 

"Let me guess, with a one way ticket back underground?" 

"Convenient that you still have that headstone." 

"I imagine the funeral will be considerably less well attended this time around," Mulder said. "People tend to get tired of repeating themselves." 

Gerber clapped his hands together and grinned, his teeth very white in the dim lamplight. "Witty to the very end. It's a shame that we've only just met, Mulder. I would have enjoyed dragging this out." 

"Yeah? How about untying me, then?" Mulder shot him a grim smile. "I'd hate to deprive you of your fun."

Gerber smiled, tore off another strip of tape, placed it firmly over Mulder's mouth. "Don't take this personally. We'll talk more later." 

He turned away, grabbed Charlie by the hair, covered his mouth as well. Charlie rolled fear-filled eyes towards Mulder, sweat beading on his face. 

_Think,_ Mulder told himself, looking away from Charlie and following Gerber with his eyes as he stepped above deck. Moments later, the engine chugged to life. 

He wriggled his hands experimentally. They were bound fast, tightly enough to begin to cut off circulation. His fingertips felt chilled, tingly. His breath whistled in his nose as he struggled to remain calm, his stomach lurching as the ground rolled beneath him. The smell of diesel was overpowering. 

They were headed out to sea. Beyond help. Beyond reach. 

His gorge rose and Mulder had a brief and vivid fear that he would vomit, that he would choke to death with tape wrapped around his head. To die from being _seasick_ after surviving so much, was simply unacceptable. He struggled to get his breathing under control, shut his eyes. It was warm below deck and he could feel sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, on his upper lip, trickling down his neck from his hairline. Breath by breath, he forced himself to remain calm. His nausea receded. 

"Mmm," Charlie said. 

Mulder opened his eyes, looked over. Charlie struggled against his bindings, his eyes wide. His mouth worked underneath the makeshift gag, tape beginning to lift from sweaty skin. 

"Mmpf," he said. "Muller." 

Mulder nodded. Deep breath. Another. 

"Oh-ing ooh ill us." _Going to kill us._

He nodded again, once. _Yes._

Charlie shut his eyes for a moment, his head tipping down towards his chest. When he opened them again, they were bright with tears. Mulder wondered how long he'd been tied up, how long they'd been waiting down in the dark. Had Gerber driven straight to the harbor from the cemetery?

"We'll talk later," Gerber had said while taping Mulder's mouth. That implied there would _be_ a later. 

Mulder shut his eyes, tried to control his nausea, focused on that thought. _Later. There will be a later._

They sat in silence in the stifling cabin, listening to the drone of the engine, for what felt like an interminable period of time. 

The engine abruptly cut off, and the boat gave a sickening lurch to the left. Charlie let out a little moan of fear. 

Gerber strode back into the cabin, smiling. 

"Sorry about the interruption," he said, yanking the tape from Mulder's mouth, and then Charlie's. "Where were we?"

"You were in the middle of telling us we were free to go," Mulder said. "That this had all been a terrible misunderstanding." 

Gerber blinked at him, and then started to laugh. It was a hearty laugh, booming, infectious. He clapped Mulder on the shoulder. " _God_ I wish I'd met you when I was younger. We could have had some fun together." 

"Is that a roundabout way of calling me old?" Mulder asked. "Because I can't say I appreciate it." 

"Mac," Charlie said, his voice hoarse. 

"Getting jealous?" Gerber turned away from Mulder, advanced on his friend. "You always did like being the center of attention." 

"That's funny, coming from you," Charlie spit. 

"I'll admit," Gerber said. "Although Mulder here turned out to be quite the find, I was a little disappointed that you'd gone to the FBI." 

"I'll bet." 

"You involved them in our game, Charlie. And it was always supposed to be _our_ game, no matter what any of those other morons thought." 

"They were our friends." 

"You were the friend that mattered. And you didn't even play." Gerber's face had gone oddly still, his eyes fixed on Charlie as though willing him to understand something. 

Mulder struggled against the tape, his wrists chafing. 

"We," Charlie said, his voice deadly quiet. "Aren't friends. Not anymore. Not for a long time. You dropped me after school, remember?" 

"You willingly descended into complacency and stupidity. I had no desire to watch that." 

"I was happy." 

"Clearly," Gerber jerked his head, indicating the state of the cabin. 

They stared at each other.

"I thought you'd enjoy this," Gerber said finally, sounding oddly distraught. "You and I, gleefully trying to one-up each other. It would have been college all over again. I'll confess to feeling rather nostalgic over the whole thing." 

"We never killed anyone in college." 

Gerber waved one gloved hand. "Semantics. I thought you'd have fun. I thought you'd wake up." He frowned. "Instead you called the FBI." 

"Most normal people just set up a coffee date when they want to reconnect with an old friend" Mulder offered. 

Both Gerber and Charlie ignored him. 

"You were the only one who came close," Gerber said. "Tyler was smart, of course he was, but he relied too much on the contrast provided by his appearance. He was smart but he _seemed_ even smarter because he looked stupid. He thought it gave him an advantage, but instead it became his crutch." 

Charlie let out a bitter, toneless laugh. 

"Joey was so stupid I'm amazed he managed to live as long as he did." Gerber shrugged. "I'd wanted to kill him for years, never got around to it. Never _would_ get around to it, regardless of desire. That would have been personal. And that was the first rule of the game, Charlie. _Don't make it personal._ "

"I hate to break it to you," Mulder called from his chair, sweat trickling down his arms as he continued to tug and pull against the binds. "But this, right here, is about as personal as it gets." 

"Zoe took care of it for me," Gerber continued, eyes still locked on Charlie. "Murder by proxy. It was so easy, getting inside her head. A sympathetic phone call here, a friendly email. She poured her heart out to me for years, emptied herself completely. So receptive, so eager for my approval after you three dropped her. Dumb move on your part, by the way." he raised his eyebrows. "The best part is that she thought it was all her idea." 

The tape binding his wrists held fast. Mulder began to appreciate the irony of the fact that, after taking frivolous risks with his life for months, he was likely going to get himself killed just when he'd decided he'd very much like to live. 

And he didn't think he'd get the chance to come back from the dead twice. 

Mulder looked over at Charlie. The other man was tense in his chair, back ramrod straight. He had an odd look on his face, one that did not quite sit right with Mulder. 

"What if I'd gone after you?" Charlie asked, his voice low. 

Gerber turned back towards him, raised his eyebrows. He pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, arms draped casually over the back. Every motion was slow, graceful, practiced. "Hm?"

"What if I'd gone for Gabrielle?" Charlie spat, pale lips pulled away from his teeth. "Cut her throat? Or _Devon?_ Mailed you news clippings about their deaths for you to read while you planned their funerals?" 

Gerber shrugged, propped his head up on his hands and studied Charlie as if he were something new and fascinating. "I'd be angry, of course. A bit surprised by your bravado. Impressed, but ultimately disappointed." 

"You're a monster." 

"Disappointed," Gerber reiterated. "Because you'd have made the same mistake that they always do. You'd have made it personal. And you can't succeed in an exercise like this when it's personal. That's the whole _point._ There's nothing interesting about revenge, about spite. The excitement is in the unpredictability, in striking where no one expects because there's _no reason_ for them to expect it! This wasn't about surrendering to base instincts, this was about elevating murder to an art form, creating something beautiful, something untouchable." 

"I just talked about killing your wife and child, and the only reaction you had was that it would be _disappointing._ " Charlie gaped at him. "Were you always this way? How did I not see it?" 

"Yes?" Gerber seemed confused, straightening his back and studying Charlie from where he sat. "Disappointing, as I said. Gabrielle is really quite beautiful. And there is a significant amount of time and energy that goes into raising a child. I'd be lying if I said I'd relish the idea of starting over." 

Charlie opened and closed his mouth soundlessly. He looked as though he'd been punched in the stomach, curled in on himself, his head drooping. 

"Someone will hear," Charlie moaned. "We're out on the water but we're not that far off shore. It's a nice day. There must be boats all over the place. Someone will see." 

And now Mulder could hear it, the distant drone of boat engines.

Gerber shrugged, unconcerned. "All part of the plan. I'll be in need of rescue once you two are taken care of." 

"You're not going to be able to walk away from this one, Mac," Mulder said.

Gerber stood up and stretched, began to pace to and fro in the small space like a predatory animal. Even in the dim light, even with the extent of his madness on display, he was a commanding presence. 

"Please don't start the 'you'll never get away with this' bullshit," Gerber sighed. "It's so uninspired." 

"Your plan might have worked," Mulder pressed. "If it had been just you. No one would ever have reason to suspect Maxwell Gerber of murder. How many is it, now, Mac? How many people out there on the east end of Long Island have you killed?" 

"They'll be sorting it out for a while, I suspect," Gerber said. 

"Your name's been thrown around too much in conjunction with this now. Too many people with ties to you have gone down. You won't be able to throw off the suspicion, Mac, even if you kill us."

Charlie made a pained groaning noise. 

"Thanks to Charlie," Gerber agreed. He did not seem particularly unhappy. "Fortunately, there's always a plan B." 

"Damn right," Charlie grunted, hurling himself up and out of the chair. He lurched towards Gerber with clumsy strides, hands outstretched-- Mulder glimpsed a flap of duct tape and Charlie's left thumb bent at an unnatural angle-- and tackled him to the ground. The gun slipped from Gerber's fingers and slid across the dirty wood floor, out of reach. 

The two men grappled for a moment, Charlie gripping Gerber's throat with one hand while he felt along the ground for a something to use as a weapon, Gerber's hands clawing up at Charlie's face, seeking his eyes. 

Charlie rolled sideways, Gerber rolling with them, and they crashed against the legs of Mulder's chair. Charlie lurched up to his knees and lunged for the gun, grasping it just as Gerber wrapped a hand around his ankle and jerked backwards. 

Charlie hit the ground, rolled over onto his back, pointed the gun up as Gerber loomed over him. 

"Enough," he panted, struggling to his feet. 

Gerber mirrored him, straightening up, brushing dirt from his suit jacket. He took a cautious step back. 

"Charlie," Mulder said. He might as well have been invisible for all of the notice either man paid him. Their eyes remained locked on one another. 

"Enough," Charlie said again, staring down the barrel of the gun towards Gerber. His voice was rough, exhausted. "Enough now, Mac." 

"Go ahead," Gerber said, and he grinned suddenly, his teeth white and predatory in the shadows. "Kill me."

Charlie looked down at the gun in his hand and grinned right back.

"Charlie," Mulder said again. 

"Come on." Gerber held out his hands. 

Charlie took a step forward, tentative, as if Gerber were a snake poised to strike. He reached out one arm and looped it around Gerber's neck, dragged him in close, pressed the barrel of the gun up against his temple. His left hand was already beginning to bruise and swell where he'd dislocated his thumb, the abused joint pressed against Gerber's throat. His breath came hard and fast. 

They were both still smiling, Mulder noted. 

"Of course," Gerber said. "You may want to think this through. Consider all angles." 

"I've considered," Charlie said. "I've considered for a long time what I'd do if I ever saw you again. As far as I'm concerned, things are going pretty damn well." 

"I agree, from your perspective." Gerber seemed nonplussed by the gun to his head. His eyes danced with merriment. "Nevertheless, you may want to have all the facts before you take your next step." 

"Please. Enlighten me." 

"The gun you are now holding was used in a murder this very morning."

Charlie's eye twitched.

"A pretty woman, recently separated from her husband. Two small boys. A terrible mess, very sad." 

The forward momentum ceased. The room was suddenly very, very quiet. 

Gerber folded his hands in front of him, calm and in control in spite of the headlock. 

"A sad story, but not an uncommon one, I think," Gerber said. "Ex husband, struggling with substance abuse. Under a fair bit of emotional strain, of late. 

"He's bluffing," Mulder said. "Charlie, you're playing right into his hands." 

Charlie's eyes flicked in his direction, then back to Gerber. 

"Did you hurt my wife?"

"She hurt you, as far as I can see. All that potential, wasted." 

"Mac, so help me god--" 

"God?" Gerber barked out a laugh. "There's only me, Charlie. Only me. And you're not going to kill me." 

"Yes, I am," Charlie's voice wavered. 

"You're fucked either way, of course. But you're not a killer, Charlie. You never had it in you. That's why you went to the FBI." 

"Charlie," Mulder said again. "It's over, now." He turned his attention to Gerber. "Get down on the floor, let him tie your hands. Let's see what kind of lawyer all your money can buy." 

"He killed my wife," Charlie's voice broke. The hand pressing the gun into Gerber's temple had begun to tremble. 

"He will answer for everything he's done," Mulder tried to keep his voice low, soothing. "Just subdue him." 

"By all means," Gerber said. "Subdue me. The police will enjoy sorting this one out, particularly once they realize what's really going on here." 

"Shut up," Mulder snapped. He looked at Charlie, who was sweating, showing no sign of lowering the gun. "Charlie, tie him up." 

"What's really going on?" 

"In on it together," Gerber said calmly. "You and Zoe and Tyler. A pact, revenge on those you perceived wronged you. She had Joey. You had me." 

"What?" Charlie hissed. 

Gerber grinned again, positively beaming. "You hatched your little plan, then went to the FBI to offset suspicion." 

"Shut _up_ ," Mulder said, turning back towards Charlie. "He's trying to get into your head. You cannot let him. Make him lie down on the ground and _tie his hands."_

"What plan?" Charlie's voice sounded small. 

"Framing me for murder, of course. Ruining my reputation. Making me feel as small and weak as you have, all these years." Gerber shrugged. "No one could blame you, of course. You gave up your own promising career to raise children with a woman who slowly drained away everything that made you unique. It was hard for you, hard to watch me achieve my own successes while you found only failure." 

"No one would believe that," Charlie said, but his voice wavered. 

"You've been bad, Charlie. Killing people left and right. You started with my biggest supporter, just to send me a message." 

Charlie started to laugh. It was high, unsteady, and did not sound entirely sane. "I haven't been to Long Island." 

"Haven't you?" 

"Charlie," Mulder tried again. Charlie ignored him, eyes locked on Gerber. 

"Credit card charges," Gerber said, taking a folded envelope out of his pocket and offering the paper. "You really should get in the habit of actually _opening_ your mail, by the way, Charlie. You might have noticed this weeks ago." 

"What charges? What the hell are you talking about?"

"In the Hamptons and Montauk area. Gas stations. Coffee. Muffins. More than one visit to the liquor store." He shook his head. "You'll find that the dates all line up." 

"Line up with what?" Charlie spoke through his teeth. 

"You know what," Gerber snapped. "Your wits have dulled over the years but please don't make me spell it out for you." 

"So how do you explain this?" Charlie asked, jamming the gun into Gerber's temple. "Huh? You, here." 

"I... misjudged," Gerber shrugged, arranging his face into an expression of regret. "I knew, from the attention that I've been receiving lately from the FBI, that you'd been in touch. I thought if I came down here to talk to you in person, we could put this petty feud behind us and find our way back to friendship. I wanted to apologize for whatever I'd done to make you believe that I could possibly be the kind of monster who went around murdering people." Gerber let out a heavy sigh. "Unfortunately, I arrived at the wrong time. How was I to know that _you_ had been actually perpetrating the crimes? Or that I'd arrive at your boat just as you were returning, in an admittedly emotionally unstable state, from doing in your entire family?" 

"You're good," Charlie breathed. 

Mulder had to agree. 

"I'm an innocent in all of this, Charlie," Gerber said, his voice low, almost seductive. "And if you kill me, that's what all of the evidence will say." 

"He has a witness," Mulder said. 

"Yes, of course, the disgraced former FBI agent who couldn't quite put it all together in time. The man who sees aliens, and spreads ludicrous fictions about rising from the grave. Who is entangled in a romantic relationship with your sister." Gerber smiled, gave a little low chuckle. "I'm sure they'll be lining up to believe his story." 

Gerber threw an elbow, catching Charlie in the stomach. He moved fast, and Charlie let out a pained gasp, doubling over. Gerber whipped one hand up, grabbed Charlie's dislocated thumb, and _twisted_. 

Charlie screamed, dropped the gun.

Gerber spun around and in one graceful motion, snatched the gun up off the floor. When he righted himself his cheeks were flushed but the grin was back on his face. 

"I'm sorry, my friend," he said, lifting the gun to point between Charlie's eyes.

A flurry of motion caught his attention. Mulder's eyes flitted towards the cabin doorway. 

"Mac," he called.

"Don't worry, you're next," Gerber said without taking his eyes off of Charlie. 

"You're forgetting something," Mulder said.

Gerber cut his eyes towards him. "Not much of an adversary after all, I'm sorry to say. Just a discredited former FBI agent with a reputation for paranoid delusions." He tilted his head. "What could I possibly be forgetting?" 

"His partner," Scully said from the doorway, and shot him. 

Mulder shut his eyes for a moment, breathed a slow sigh of relief. When he opened them again, she was moving unsteadily into the cabin, holding onto the wall to keep her balance. 

"Pregnancy is hell on my sea legs," she said with a wry smile. Her hands were cool on his face as she checked him for injuries. He leaned into her touch and shut his eyes for a moment.

"I'm fine," he said. "Scully. How--?"

"I followed you," she said, tearing at the tape around his wrists. He flexed his hands and winced as circulation came rushing back. "After I spoke to Agent Doggett I--" she huffed out a laugh. "I had a bad feeling. I got to the marina just in time to see Gerber pulling out of the harbor." 

"I don't know what to say," Charlie spoke from the corner, his voice small. He was cradling his injured hand. "Dana, I--" 

"I called the Coast Guard," she said. Only the slight tremble in her voice betrayed any emotion. She locked eyes with her brother, nodded slightly. 

"How did they get here so fast?" 

"They didn't," she said. 

There was the distant sound of a boat engine, growing closer. 

"That's probably them now," she added. 

"How did you--" 

She glanced over at Mulder, her mouth twitching up into a smile. "I, ah, I might have commandeered a boat." 

He smiled back, his face breaking into a full on grin.

"Dana," Charlie said. "Did you-- You said Agent Doggett went-- did he find Michelle? The boys?" 

She nodded, the smile fading from her face. 

"Are they--" 

"Charlie, they're fine." 

He let out an explosive breath of air, stumbling back against the cabin wall. His knees seemed to give out under him and he sank to the floor. "Are you-- are you sure?" 

She went to him, crouched down with a wince. "Zoe was in the house, Charlie. I believe she had every intention of doing harm but she didn't get the chance. Agent Doggett got there in time." 

"They're okay?" 

"They're okay," she confirmed, touching his shoulder. "They're okay." 

"And Zoe?" Mulder asked. 

She looked up at him, shook her head. "Dead." 

Scully took Charlie's injured hand in hers, turning it gently to inspect the bruising. Then suddenly Charlie was crying, ugly, heaving sobs, and he reached out and hugged his sister, pulling her close. She stiffened for a moment and then seemed to melt into his embrace, bringing her arms up to wrap tightly around him. 

Mulder watched them for a moment, then turned away and stepped up into the sunlight. He raised his arms to hail the approaching Coast Guard vessel. 

It was a beautiful day, ships dotting the water under a blue sky. He took a deep breath of salt air and, for a moment, felt at peace.


	12. Chapter 12

*

Uniformed officers met them at the marina, the parking lot a riot of flashing lights and bustling activity. A crowd of bystanders had formed, watching, gape-mouthed, as Mulder helped Scully off of the boat. Charlie followed, still cradling his hand against his chest. 

"Not exactly graceful," Scully huffed, stepping down onto the dock. She let out a relieved breath once she found herself on solid footing. 

"This," Mulder said, waving his hand in her direction. "Is all an act."

She raised her eyebrows at him. 

"You stole a boat--"

"Commandeered." 

"Commandeered a boat, followed us out to sea and managed to climb from aforementioned boat onto ours without any assistance." 

"I was close enough just to step from one deck to the other," she pointed out. "The real challenge was cutting the engine before he heard me get too close. I had to time it right so the current would bring me to you." 

"You make it sound very exciting." 

"Oh it was," she said. "But, all things considered, I think I've had enough excitement for one day. Or one lifetime." 

"Charlie?" Michelle's voice cut through the excited chatter around them, and Mulder glanced up to see the crowd parting to allow her through, Pete and Sean each clutching on to one of her hands. There was a livid bruise on the side of her face but she seemed otherwise unharmed. Doggett trailed behind. Their eyes met and Mulder gave him a small nod. 

"Oh god," Charlie said, brushing past Mulder and Scully to fling his arms around her. He dropped to his knees on the dock, kissed his sons. 

Mulder looked from them to Doggett, and the other man cleared his throat. 

"I'm not clear on what happened," Mulder said finally, keeping his voice low. "The way that Gerber was talking, I didn't think there was any chance." 

"All I know," Doggett said. "Is that I arrived on the scene to find Michelle struggling with an intruder. This woman, Zoe, she made a threatening advance and I shot her." 

"Did she say anything?" Mulder asked. 

Doggett shrugged. "She said he'd be mad. It was a little creepy, honestly. She was very matter-of-fact about it." 

"I think," Mulder said. "If we pull her phone and internet records, we'll be able to establish a connection between her and Gerber. I doubt she'll have been discrete." 

"So they were working together, all along?" Scully mused. 

He thought about that, tried to fit Zoe in with what he already knew about Gerber, with what he'd learned about the tangled, competitive friendships that had soured so spectacularly. 

"No," Mulder said after a long moment. "No, I don't think so. I think he did what he always did, strung her along, made her think she was more important to him than she was. I think he dropped hints for her to follow, and she let herself believe they were her own ideas."

"So why go after Michelle?" Scully shook her head. 

"Because Gerber blamed Michelle for taking away his friend. Zoe would know something about that," Mulder mused. "She'd be able to relate. And she'd want to make it up to him, out of loyalty." He shook his head, looked back over to where EMTs had begun fussing over Charlie's hand. Michelle and the boys stood awkwardly to the side. She still had one hand gripping his shirtsleeve, as if unwilling or unable to release him. 

"I think," Mulder said finally, tearing his eyes away and looking back to Scully and Doggett. "That Gerber didn't care one way or another about Michelle. It was always about Charlie. It suited his purpose for Charlie to believe his family was dead."

"But the whole point was to set up a fail-safe," Scully said quietly. "For Charlie to be held responsible should he use the murder weapon on Gerber. Gerber wanted to frame him."

"No, he was _willing_ to frame Charlie. But I don't think he ever stopped hoping that Charlie would change his mind, decide to join in." As he spoke it began to crystallize in his mind, the pieces slotting together. He thought of the twin smiles that Gerber and Charlie had exchanged as they spoke, the fever-bright intensity between them. "He would have had a plan in place, something he could do that would make all of the evidence against Charlie disappear. He just wanted Charlie to think he had nothing holding him back anymore." 

He watched Scully and Doggett exchange uncomfortable looks. 

"I always knew there was something off about that Gerber guy," Doggett said. "But this-- this is on an entirely different level." 

Mulder nodded slowly, looked back over at Charlie and his family. He was sitting in the back of the ambulance, hand taped up. Michele stood next to him, her arm around his shoulders. He rested his head against her waist. He had wavered, there in the cabin with the gun pressed to Gerber's temple. He had wavered, but he hadn't given in. He'd picked his family, he had picked his humanity, he hadn't joined in with Gerber's game. Whatever his initial motivation for getting them involved, in spite of the complex snarl of jealousy and insecurity and pain surrounding those lost friendships, he had been the only one out of five not to take a life.

"Gerber made the same mistake they all did, in the end," Mulder said quietly. "He made it personal." 

*

Scully opened her apartment door with the phone cradled against her ear, smiled at him as he came in carrying a pizza box. 

He had stopped off at his apartment and showered before calling in the takeout order, washing away the stink of sweat and fear, all traces of Gerber and the humid darkness of Charlie's boat. Feeling better, he'd packed a change of clothes in a duffel bag and gone right back out to his car before he could talk himself out of it. 

"I know, Mom," Scully said into the phone. She shuffled off through her living room, sat down on the couch. "But he _is_ fine. Really. And if you give him a call tomorrow I think he'd be--I know he'd be really happy to hear from you." She let out a small laugh. "No, he-- he and Michelle and the boys are staying in a motel. Technically their house is considered a crime scene right now." She cocked her head, listening. "I think... it's too soon to say, Mom. But I think they might." 

Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, Mulder turned his attention back to the pizza. He hunted up some paper plates, found a liter of caffeine-free diet soda in the fridge. He was just sliding a slice of pizza onto one of the plates when he heard Scully's footsteps behind him. 

"Sorry about that," she said. Her voice was slightly strained, as if she'd been crying. 

He looked up at her. Her eyes were red, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Happy tears, then. Relieved tears. 

"Your mom?" he asked. 

"Yeah," she looked down at her swelling stomach for a moment, placed one hand on her belly. "I wanted to thank her." 

He gave her a quizzical look, waited for further explanation. 

"She went to you about this because she had a feeling, Mulder. She thought Charlie was in trouble, and she thought I'd laugh at her." She shook her head slowly. "And that might have been true, once. But, Mulder, it was the same feeling that made me go to the marina instead of meeting Agent Doggett at the house. I just wanted to be sure that she knew that." 

She kept her head down as she spoke, eyes on her belly, almost as if she were embarrassed by her own words. 

Mulder hesitated for a moment, caught between two worlds. Before he'd died, he would have cracked a joke, saved the moment, spared her embarrassment. After, he-- what would he do? Tiptoe around her? Look for something sensitive, something tactful, and manage neither? 

"Scully," he said, his voice serious. 

She lifted her gaze finally, met his eyes. 

"Have you had any of these so-called feelings centered around winning lottery numbers?" 

The smile split her face even as she rolled her eyes, and he thought he'd made the right choice. 

He put the pizza back down on the table, stepped forward, put his arms around her. Her hair tickled his chin. She smelled the same as she always had, his Scully. 

"Thank you," she said.

"Technically, I should be thanking you," he pointed out. 

"Ah," she said, stepping back a little to look up into his face. "Then as long as you owe me--" 

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Uh oh." 

"Lamaze classes." 

"What?" 

She was still smiling but seemed suddenly unsure. "Breathing techniques. Preparation for labor." 

"No, not--" he shook his head. "I'm familiar with Lamaze as a concept. What are you asking me, specifically?" 

"Typically, one attends with a partner," she said. "My mother offered, but..." 

"Ah," he said. 

She crossed her arms, looked at him. "What do you think?" 

"I think we make good partners." 

The smile she gave him was dazzling. 

"I think so too," she said softly. 

He wanted to kiss her. Instead he turned, picked up the bottle of diet soda off of the table, gave her an exaggerated frown. "You really know how to live it up, don't you?" 

"Hey," she said. "I'm watching my figure." 

He followed her gaze down to her heavily pregnant stomach, and suddenly they were both laughing. 

"Are you going to keep trying to be funny, or are you going to feed me?" She gave a pointed glance towards the pizza. 

"Nag, nag, nag," he said. 

He followed her to the couch, carrying the paper plates. She took hers from him as he fumbled for the television remote. This was familiar, this dance. This was something they _did_. Something they did together. Something they used to do. Something they could still do. 

He put the remote down, turned to look at her. She had the slice of pizza halfway to her mouth. She looked relaxed and happy. Her hair shone in the lamplight. 

"Could you--?" he gestured. "I'd like to--" 

She put the pizza down. He kissed her. 

She made a small noise of surprise, but her hands came up to carefully cradle his face. Her lips were soft against his. 

When he pulled away he rested his forehead against hers, shut his eyes. His heart thudded in his chest, reminding him with every beat that he was still very much alive. 

"Mulder," she said, after a long moment. 

He did not open his eyes. "Hmm?" 

She did not respond. 

After another moment, he opened his eyes, sat back slightly. She was smiling. He thought he might be as well. 

Her eyes darted away from his face to the coffee table, then back again. 

"Really?" he said. 

"I'm sorry," she laughed. "But I'm really very hungry." 

"You've only got about another month to keep milking this pregnancy excuse," he groused good-naturedly. His limbs felt pleasantly warmed, comfortable, as if he had finally shaken off the last lingering chill of the grave. 

She nudged against him as she reached once more for her dinner. He leaned over for his own pizza, nudged back. 

Scully reached for the remote. 

"Absolutely not," he told her, grabbing for it. 

She laughed again, the sound a soothing balm to his very soul. Then she leaned forward, pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth. He raised his eyebrows, turned back to face her. 

"You had sauce," she said. "Right there." She gave him a sly look, mirth dancing in her eyes. 

His face kept wanting to rearrange itself into a smile, his cheeks ached. They weren't the same, he knew. He still had questions, big ones, questions with potentially unpleasant answers. And soon, he'd have to start asking them. 

They weren't the same. 

But they were alive. They were together. And for now, that was enough. 

Scully's fingers, cool and strong, laced with his own as she leaned back on the couch, turned her attention to the television. He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back. 

 

 

End

 

There's a tugboat down by the river  
Where a cement bag's just drooping on down  
Oh that cement is just there for the weight dear  
Five'll get you ten old Macky's back in town

-Bobby Darin, _Mack the Knife_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote, folks. 
> 
> If you've been reading along, I really appreciate your patience with me as I worked this one out. The first iteration of Gerber Daisies was initially begun in 2006, first posted in 2008, and finally finished in 2010. I have never been satisfied with the end result of that first effort. I found the chapters to be uneven, the tone inconsistent, and many of the characters underdeveloped. I wanted to go back to the beginning, back to the original idea, and see if I could do it better the second time around. I hope that I was successful. 
> 
> Thanks for coming along for the ride.


End file.
